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Americans React to UnitedHealthcare CEO's Murder: 'My Empathy Is Out of Network'
- bryanlarsen 2y agoAs TwoNineA posted in another thread: "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow, often misattributed to Mark Twain
- arp242 2y agoOld Soviet joke: A man goes to a newspaper stand every day, buys a copy of Pravda, glances at the front cover, curses, and throws it away. After a few weeks of this the seller asks what's going on: "why do you always look at the cover but never inside? Can I help you?" "I'm looking for an obituary." "An obituary? But those are in the back and you're only looking at the front!" "Oh no, the obituary I'm looking for will be on the front page."
- tzs 2y agoFrom Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary": > HOMICIDE > -n. > The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another - the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.
- buran77 2y agoAlthough this looks like it could be a professional hit, possibly part of a bigger and more hidden issue, I always wondered how long before people start taking the vigilantism road especially in countries with extensive gun ownership. And how will those CEOs react to this.
- xbmcuser 2y agoI was thinking the same but then I thought a professional hitman probably also has families and health insurance problems.
- NoGravitas 2y agoOr people with families and health insurance problems may be able to hire a hitman.
- gorbachev 2y agoThe CEOs will hire private security, expense it to the company, which causes pressure to raise insurance premiums.
- throwaway48476 2y agoHaving private security around all the time makes it way harder to cheat on your spouse.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago...why?
- throwaway48476 2y agoThere's the risk of them talking. Also if you visibly have security it's way more likely people will take pictures of you and post them.
- gorbachev 2y agoIt's difficult to eliminate witnesses, if they're physical security professionals. j/k
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- eesmith 2y agoDidn't seem to bother JFK, though it did cause "morale problems" with the Secret Service. Thought it's true, they weren't private security.
- buran77 2y agoStill not ideal for the life loving CEO. Anyone who had to go around with a security detail because of genuine threats to their lives knows it's a crap situation. Plenty of your customers may have nothing to lose. It's just a matter of kicking off the trend and way more people start seeing options like this, previously considered crazy, as more and more realistic.
- phtrivier 2y agoThere are two end of the spectrum: * behaving better, potentially with the consequence that profits would be reduced * getting more security guards, keep lobbying for laws to silence stories that could make them look bad, and keep lobbying against laws that would prevent them from doing the bad things I have strong guesses about what the majority of them will take. But, who knows, maybe polymarket knows better ?
- nickfromseattle 2y ago> * getting more security guards It will be interesting to see how VIP security companies respond to the proliferation of kamikaze drones.
- wholinator2 2y agoOh my God, i has forgotten about that black mirror episode. Strange we don't see more civilian attack drones, they'll only get easier to make
- tivert 2y ago> Oh my God, i has forgotten about that black mirror episode. Strange we don't see more civilian attack drones, they'll only get easier to make. It's probably because killing someone with a gun is far more represented in the media. Guns are a product that can be purchased off the shelf. Also civilian kamikaze drones would probably be easy to jam and on top of that require a lot more technical skill to pull off. You'd have to build a bomb and some kind of fuze, and it'd be a lot more expensive to practice and test it out to the point where it would be likely to work (v.s. a gun where you can buy a bunch of bullets for probably a fraction of the cost of a single unmodified drone).
- RGamma 2y agoDrone + gun + trigger widget?
- throwaway48476 2y agoPeople say 'professional hit' as if it was something that existed outside of Hollywood movies.
- teractiveodular 2y agoThey do, but the targets are rival drug dealers etc, not megacorp CEOs. (Except maybe in Russia.)
- throwaway48476 2y agoCartels have sicarios but not in this country. Drug gangs aren't really the 'professional' type of killings.
- lucianbr 2y ago"Not in this country" is some reevaluation from "outside of Hollywood movies". Other countries are real.
- throwaway48476 2y agoMost Hollywood movies are set in the US. If you want a realistic portrayal of foreign counties there's always foreign cinema.
- lucianbr 2y agoDid you actually bring some counterarguments to "other countries are real"?
- apetresc 2y agoYou don't believe hitmen exist?
- throwaway48476 2y ago
- trueismywork 2y agoCEOs are already reacting to this with doomsday scenarios.
- wholinator2 2y agoWhere? I'd love to see what they actually think about this. If any of them have even begun to consider treating people as human beings instead of temporary roadblocks to growth at any cost
- rakejake 2y agoThere is no need for gun ownership. Vigilante justice is quite popular (both the idea as well as actual instances) in many poor countries (if not most). When dysfunctional or outright malicious institutions have pissed off enough people, you can expect the fringe to start lashing out with violence.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoVigilantism is most of America’s gun violence.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y agoOnly most?
- calyth2018 2y agoNot that professional. Looks like a suppressor on a pistol, but not configured and tested so that it doesn't malfunction. Shooter is skilled enough to deal with the malfunctions. This suggests that shooter's at the minimum enthusiast, possibly trained for a different profession as a rank and file guy, but not enough to actually put somewhat specialty gear together reliably. I don't think the guy's a hired assassin per se, but more likely a very disgruntled person who felt wronged by UnitedHealth.
- water-data-dude 2y agoThe bullets had “Deny”, “Defend”, “Depose” written on them, which makes it seem ideological. https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-ceo-manhattan-shooting-death-7f6581ba6b0b520938d82c361e77a83c https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-ceo-manhattan-sh...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tzs 2y agoIt probably is not a professional hit. I read an interview about it with a professor of criminal law who has spent decades studying professional killers, and he mentioned several things that would be very unusually for an actual professional hit. I don't remember all of them, but a big one was the timing and location. Professional hitmen learn the target's routine and make the hit somewhere where there won't be many people around and there is less chance of something interfering with getting away. This guy did it in a crowded area, that is full of cameras, and even stopped at a Starbucks beforehand to buy some things. I've also seen a few comments from experts about the gun. It seems to be a gun that a professional hitman would be unlikely to use. Here's an article that quotes several of these experts on the oddities of the gun [1]. [1] https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-nypd-inspector-skeptical-unitedhealthcare-ceo-gunman-professional-zeroes-weapon-choice https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-nypd-inspector-skeptical-u...
- tim333 2y agoYeah the guy's photo has been put out by the police and is fairly clear. I figure a professional would have done a better job at not being seen.
- qaq 2y agoIf one goes to subreddits or forums where nurses and doctors hang out it quickly becomes obvious why a large majority of people reacted the way they reacted.
- vfbghgjhj 2y ago[dead]
- poincaredisk 2y agoCan you explain why it's obvious? I don't hang out in such subreddits, and with my outside (non-american) perspective it's a bit shocking to read.
- gobip 2y agoI'm non american too. They make this news look sad, while him and their companies let thousands of people dying at the hospital because they don't have the means to pay for their surgeries. They have blood on their hands and americans can't have empathy for these people having the power to let someone live or not.
- thelastparadise 2y agoDo they denied their surgery or did they get it but bankrupt after?
- fazeirony 2y agooften, surgeries are denied if you can't pay. plenty pay insurance premiums diligently but then are routinely denied coverage. there was a story the other day about an insurance provider not continuing anesthesia in surgeries if they (the surgery) takes too long and the patient didn't pay up. healthcare is the #1 problem in the US right now and our legislators are only making it worse due to accepting bribes (i.e. lobbying monies) to keep the status quo or worse, enrich the corporations in our for-profit healthcare system.
- tomp 2y agofunny that he gets all the blame as if any other insurance company can do any better, in a broken system but the system, those that created it (politicians) and those that exploit it (non-medical hospital staff) get off
- jsheard 2y agoWell UHC does have the highest denial rate in the industry, even in a broken system his company is an outlier. https://www.valuepenguin.com/health-insurance-claim-denials-and-appeals https://www.valuepenguin.com/health-insurance-claim-denials-...
- code_biologist 2y agoIn reading other discussions, I came across this recent gem from a different company: November 14, 2024 - In an unprecedented move, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plans representing Connecticut, New York and Missouri have unilaterally declared it will no longer pay for anesthesia care if the surgery or procedure goes beyond an arbitrary time limit, regardless of how long the surgical procedure takes. The American Society of Anesthesiologists calls on Anthem to reverse this proposal immediately. https://www.asahq.org/about-asa/newsroom/news-releases/2024/11/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-will-not-pay-complete-duration-of-anesthesia-for-surgical-procedures https://www.asahq.org/about-asa/newsroom/news-releases/2024/...
- tomp 2y agoThat by itself doesn't mean anything. Their profit margins are higher than average but not exceptional. https://www.financecharts.com/compare/UNH,CI,ELV,CVS,MOH/summary/profit-margin https://www.financecharts.com/compare/UNH,CI,ELV,CVS,MOH/sum... But even that doesn't mean anything. I worked for a company that used ML to fight health insurance fraud ("mistakes") in the German market - where doctors/administrators would require payment for extra procedures that they never actually performed. So "denial rate" or even "profit margin" would go up with better AI that discovers more fraud! Maybe a good metric would be something like "expected lifespan"? But even that can be misleading (e.g. maybe different insurers serve different populations...)
- pavlov 2y agoHas anyone claimed responsibility for what appears to be a well-planned assassination? As America moves further towards a billionaire-controlled system that disregards conventional norms of democracy, I wonder if there will be a rise of militant leftist groups, like in Italy and Germany in the 1970s (Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhof). These groups also targeted industrialists and executives.
- greyw 2y agoThe stock went slightly up after the murder. I guess he is replacable. Rest in peace. The company will do just fine.
- jsheard 2y agoHe died doing what he loved: increasing shareholder value.
- ozgrakkurt 2y agoThis is the best comment I have read on this site. Also hope he gets denied life insurance if he has it
- fazeirony 2y agothis comment is pure gold - thanks for making it today!
- schmookeeg 2y agoPossibly because his replacement can now commit even more horrors and blame it on the incumbent. They have a year or three of unlimited enshittification.
- arp242 2y agoI'm not really all that clued up on all of this, but overall seems like a Shinzo Abe-type situation: no, we shouldn't be assassinating people. But also: you can't just wreck people's lives for a living and expect no consequences. This seems just as much of a failure of society in dealing with these kind of nihilistic parasites sucking our society dry as anything else.
- thelastparadise 2y agoWhat do you should be done with him then?
- eptcyka 2y agoRelieve him of his worldy posessions.
- coldpie 2y agoWealth tax. Increasing tax on wealth, capping at a 100% tax for wealth above $10M. Exact numbers negotiable, but that's where I'm starting the bid. When you've hit your wealth cap, it removes the motivation to drive up your bank account's high score (or at least makes it much more difficult) which is what drives most of this evil.
- DaiPlusPlus 2y ago> What do you should be done with him then? Unemployment. Render the entire concept of being an executive for a for-profit healthcare organization moot. This can be accomplished with legislation. There's already plenty of established laws that prohibit non-profit organizations from doing (or not-doing) certain things[1], so it's not a stretch to have laws that prohibit for-profit organizations from doing other certain things. ...I'm only saying "legislation" because, by all reasons the free-market cannot support a for-profit health-insurance company: how can they exist at all when they're competing with non-profits for the same customers but who (like BCBS) don't have shareholder dividends to pay; so for UnitedHealthcare to somehow be both more-attractive to customers than BCBS (presumably by being cheaper) and still being able to pay dividends with whatever's left leads me to some very dark conclusions about how they operate internally. There's gotta be something the SEC can find and charge them with? [1] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exempt-purposes-internal-revenue-code-section-501c3 https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organiz...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- newsclues 2y agoPeople on the internet seem to have a problem differentiating between companies and human beings. If you find pleasure in the death of a human, you need to reflect on what inside you is broken. It’s possible to have no love for insurance companies and still regret a tragic loss of life.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoI think most people aren't finding pleasure in his death, but perhaps a sense of justice.
- maxglute 2y agoThe man probably has a higher body count than Bin Laden. I think schadenfreude from most is to be expected.
- piva00 2y agoCEOs are paid big bucks because the buck stops with them. The actions of this CEO in particular caused suffering to an untold number of families, just reading through comments on Reddit about people who had UnitedHealthcare denying life saving procedures is heart breaking, one of the most striking anecdotes to me was a widower telling how his wife died from treatable cancer after UH postponed twice her surgery date, 3 months each time. I can differentiate between people and companies but immoral actions of a company are perpetrated by its executives, and the CEO is the lead executive, so this person's job in particular was exactly to be the responsible for the company's actions. Pretty easy to understand the lack of sympathy viewed from the broader picture. I don't condone the murder but completely understand why people do not care he died.
- lucianbr 2y ago> you need to reflect on what inside you is broken Well people's opinions might be different if this CEO had reflected on what inside him was broken. So a kind of symmetry.
- newsclues 2y ago
- xvector 2y agoAnyone wanna guess how many deaths this guy was responsible for?
- immibis 2y agoHalf a million
- wholinator2 2y agoSource? Or is this a joke? I both can and can't believe this statement
- immibis 2y ago"Any guesses for how many ...?" "Half a million" "You got a source for that guess?"
- Eumenes 2y ago[flagged]
- germinalphrase 2y ago“ I don't doubt this mans death will be celebrated but only the terminally online weirdos are publicly saying so.” I don’t know. I live in Minneapolis where this company is headquartered, and even the tone around my admittedly corporate circle is something akin to “you make your bed, you sleep in it”. He was apparently a nice and well-liked guy, but I’m not seeing a well spring of sympathy.
- Eumenes 2y agoI wont' shed any tears for this guy, mostly because 1) I don't care and 2) I don't know him, but we could apply the “you make your bed, you sleep in it” reasoning to many, many industries (including ours).
- germinalphrase 2y agoI agree. We all carry responsibility for the outcomes of our actions, choices and associations. It is possible to work in our industry for companies with positive social impact and minimal negative externalities. If you do not, perhaps you should consider a change.
- SauciestGNU 2y agoI think we ought to be careful to live our lives and act in such a way that people don't feel celebrate our deaths.
- Eumenes 2y agoI agree, but that assessment is open to interpretation. Build software for self driving cars that displaces a workforce? Automate a segment of the economy that makes a workforce obsolete? Build actuary software that helps analysts decline claims based on health conditions? Write some computer vision algorithms to be used in surveillance software?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rwyinuse 2y agoUnderstandable reaction. Leadership of totally unethical companies deserves no sympathy.
- lisp2240 2y agoI hope this is a sign the people have realized democracy has failed, they have no real power, and that we need to fight the oligarchs
- vouaobrasil 2y agoI think democracy has definitely failed. And if people start fighting oligarchs, that wouldn't be a bad thing either, provided it is done strategically.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoPure democracy failed when the elected leaders decided to experiment with not enforcing laws.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoIt's probably slightly more correct to state that they failed to get full democracy. America has a long history of denying democracy to its people, so it's not exactly a secret. On a long enough timescale it can be seen to becoming more democratic but there were setbacks along the way and the oligarchy made a few strong moves over the last few decades.
- mrguyorama 2y agoHilariously, Donald Trump's re-election is such a great example of how powerful democracy is if you actually do it. But Americans are so pacified that it takes conspiracy theories to get them interested in invoking their supreme power at the ballot box That voter apathy is intentional. Making you believe "both sides" (as if there are only two sides) are the same is intentional. If you hate politicians, make them fear you at the ballot box. Let someone else go to jail for murder.
- hello_computer 2y agoThe business model of insurance is no more exploitative than that of big tech. One needs look no further than profits to verify this. With the number of corporate tech people here, I would expect more reservation over corporate guys getting capped. Besides, the big money settles to specialists, hospitals, & pharma (remember Shkreli?). Unless this was a competitor’s hit, the killer went for the wrong target. When is Nadella going to get popped for draining a redacted amount of water from a desert town for model training? When are Cook and Zuckerberg going to get drive-by’d for eavesdropping on your conversations so they can target ads?
- vouaobrasil 2y agoThat is why I would not have any sympathy for a big tech CEO either.
- anonzzzies 2y agoWhen I read about unitedhealthcare and their practices, I always wonder if their offices are guarded by snipers and swat teams 24/7. If someone paid insurance for decades and gets denied treatment they need, then what is to stop anyone? Obviously most (by far) people aren't criminally insane, but you would think 1 or 2 per 1000 denials would think 'screw this; I go, you go'. Kind of a win for humanity in the face of pure evil I guess; people are far less willing to react with violence.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoI wouldn't really calls someone like that criminally insane, though. Just perhaps a person with nothing to lose.
- anonzzzies 2y agoWhy doesn't it happen every day?
- vouaobrasil 2y agoPerhaps it is because previously, the world wasn't screwed up enough for it to happen. Why don't revolutions happen every day? But they do happen...
- RGamma 2y agoThe boiling frogs aren't uncomfortable enough yet to take their jumps.
- consteval 2y agoA century of conditioning. We used to just straight-up kill evil business owners and establish a union. And when that didn't work, we just blew up the factory and said "you're going to respect us". That's all been diminished by law, and socialization does the rest. Probably there's thousands of Americans essentially killed by insurance with nothing to lose. But they are too placated, much like a lap dog.
- gessha 2y ago
- braza 2y agoThe most shocking aspect of this murder is the fact that I S&P 100 CEO did not have any kind of security around, especially being from an industry that deals with so sensitive business like insurance. It's bonkers to me that the board of this company did not know that he did not have any personal security, and definitely someone somehow will open a lawsuit to uncover that. If a S&P 100 CEO is so approachable like this, what this company board thinks that it would hold someone to threaten or kidnap the CEO himself or it's family members to get some advantage?
- throwaway48476 2y agoUnless you know someone is trying to kill you it can be safer to give yourself a lower profile by not having security.
- braza 2y agoI am not a CEO, but I am pretty sure that after the company becomes a national entity there are some specific insurances specialized for this kind of individual and the board provides some security at company expenses [1]. For instance: The shareholders of Tesla know that it has a huge dependency on the services of Elon Musk, and the continuity and value of the business rely upon his ability to work (i.e. not being dead); I strongly believe that if the board of directors does not allocate security services to keep the continuity of his life (i.e. to keep him working) I would be surprised that it wouldn't be a gross breach in their fiduciary duties. [1] - https://fortune.com/2024/09/14/tech-billionaire-ceos-security-costs-meta-tesla-apple-nvidia-google/ https://fortune.com/2024/09/14/tech-billionaire-ceos-securit... [2] - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000119312510017054/ds1.htm#toc51863_4 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000119312510...
- throwaway48476 2y agoTesla is a unique case in that their overvaluation is very much tied to elon personally. Elon is also a public and recognizable figure. Security is usually to keep the crazies away, not the dedicated attacker. If you're a nonpublic figure you don't have to worry about being recognized and attacked by random crazy people.
- rayiner 2y ago[flagged]
- happymellon 2y agoExcept that there are plenty of countries that don't do this and are secular. Christianity and Islam is used as an excuse to perform all sorts of horrors, so it's almost like it has absolutely nothing to do with that, and far more on providing incentives for people that align with not being a complete asshole.
- rayiner 2y agoThere’s lots of putatively secular countries where people simply adhere to Christian morality without calling it that are acknowledging Jesus. What constitutes “being a complete asshole?” Starting from secular first principles, what’s the argument that people shouldn’t be happy a wealthy CEO of a company that people perceive does a lot of harm got assassinated?
- happymellon 2y agoConsidering I'm watching the US tear itself apart in the name of Christianity, I have no idea what you are on about. You literally have women dying daily due to poor healthcare driven by religious ideology.
- rayiner 2y agoIncorrect, but you’re changing the subject. Help me work through how secular morality handles the assassination of a CEO of a widely hated company.
- happymellon 2y agoSubject didn't change, you just don't seem to understand the scope of your own question as there are many facets. I will try and answer it from my perspective of my own secular country which is difficult as we don't do that sort of thing. 1. In terms of murder, we would prosecute the murderer as life is precious. 2. In terms of preventing the same actions from happening again, there was uproar when shootings did happen here so we restricted gun ownership. The issue you have here is that it isn't just a widely hated company. It is a company that is probably related to 10-20k preventable deaths a year. This isn't being viewed through the scope of the assassination of a widely hated company CEO so your question is wrong which is the reason you don't get it. This is a man that presided over the deaths of many people for the seeking of profit. He was CEO for 3 years and the discussion shows that he was well aware of the damage he was causing society. Your morally bankrupt Christians haven't been calling for universal health coverage. How would a Christian society handle the murder of a man who knowingly took the money of 60k people and then proceeded to kill them?
- billy99k 2y ago[flagged]
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago"Most of the people reacting this way that I've seen are hard-left politically" How do you know most people's political affiliation? "probably had nothing to do with the decision of denying someone health care" Diffusion of responsibility is a thing in all large corporations, but that doesn't mean you don't understand that your OKRs to increase profits come at the expense of people's health.
- throwaway48476 2y agoI've seen disdain for him coming from all political affiliations. Dealing with health insurance is a pretty universal experience that generates a pretty uniformity of feeling.
- porridgeraisin 2y ago> Had nothing to do with the decision of denying someone health care. What? He's the CEO. If we are to be agreeable that CEOs deserve a huge paycheck since they're the "buck stops here" of the company and that they get to reap the benefits of good financial performance, then they're equally responsible for all of their companies less positive practices, and all of its consequences, including getting murdered.
- porridgeraisin 2y agoHmm downvoted. I suppose there are many CEOs that hang around this forum...
- 05 2y ago> This guy left behind a wife and kids Yeah lots of scumbags have families. What's your point? 'Think about the children' when the only reaction to a school shooting from the right is 'thoughts and prayers'? Maybe now that CEOs are getting killed instead they will take gun control more seriously :)
- wesselbindt 2y agoAtomized violence like this is pure adventurism and does nothing to improve the lives ruined by men like Brian Thompson. If anything, this event will serve as a catalyst to expand the police state. There is nothing to celebrate here.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoThat is probably true. Direct atmomized violence as you nicely put it is in some way welcomed by the system because it is a perfect excuse for the system to tighten the reigns.
- subjectsigma 2y agoWhen I was a super angsty teenager I had a little thought experiment. I imagined that I had a Death Note or some other magical device that could instantly murder someone from any range at any time. How long would it take me to eradicate McDonalds? (Nothing against McD in particular, just using it as an example of an enormous company.) I eventually came to the conclusion that there’s no way to do it killing individuals one by one in isolation. You would have to kill enough people to start changing society, in one way or another. But you can already do that, plenty of other ways to change society without murder. It might be hard but not impossible. To 13 year old me this was like some divine epiphany, and so even though it’s, well, pretty unimpressive, the event is very clear in my memory.
- p3rls 2y agoI would bet I could take mcdonalds out in under an hour. You don't need to kill everyone just a few at the top to make your divine will understood. Btw I love mcdonalds and would never
- tivert 2y ago> When I was a super angsty teenager I had a little thought experiment. I imagined that I had a Death Note or some other magical device that could instantly murder someone from any range at any time. How long would it take me to eradicate McDonalds? ... I eventually came to the conclusion that there’s no way to do it killing individuals one by one in isolation. I'm not so sure. What if you repeatedly and predictably killed whoever occupied C-suite and the board (or whoever takes the leadership roles)? Eventually, people would see the pattern, and no one would agree to take those roles, and the company would die. In your thought experience, if you proceeded to predictably kill whoever was*next in the line of succession after exactly a week, you could probably even trigger a mass resignation without even killing that many leaders, as everyone races to get out of the way.
- wholinator2 2y agoIt's extremely difficult to have sympathy for this person, just look at the data. They were the highest by percentage of claims denied of any company. They were being investigated for fraud, corruption, _and_ monopolistic behavior. Many people (including myself) have had family members killed by the state of Healthcare in America. Just last week i was wondering to my friends how things like this don't happen more often! Healthcare companies are run by their executives and their shareholders. Those people have been actively pushing our passively watching extremely harmful policies get enacted month after month. Another company just announced it'll only pay for the estimated amount of anesthesia for a surgery, and not the actual amount needed (you know, when you live in reality and not on a spreadsheet). I'll say, personally, i watched my own mother slowly die because: 1) she was afraid to go to the doctor for fear of having to use my father's insurance which i needed very badly and which she had to use after being laid off from a highly profitable corporation in 2009 2) when she did use his insurance (she was right) they fought very very hard to not cover the necessary treatments. The amount of anguish and terror they put my father through was equal to that of watching his wife wither and die, he'll say that himself 3) the _only_ reason she even got what she did was that he was high enough in _his_ work position and there long enough to have significant pull with the tpp guys, who are the only actual human beings in the entire story. They fought for him and the entire company switched health providers because of the cost of one man's wife. Every human you talk to on the phone will try to help you and genuinely wish you well. All the people in the doctors office and so incredibly kind and helpful and knowledgeable. What we have, is a group of blood sucking number-brained vampires, running these systems. I watched my mother die because she was scared to use a healthcare system that she had worked for, paid into for the vast majority of her life. The system didn't care about her, the system wanted her to die because it would save a couple thousand dollars on a 20 billion dollar balance sheet. How many of us have seen this happen. I think we Americans tend to kinda forget that we can choose a different system, we can fight for a better reality. And the assassination, practically ritual murder in the eyes of some, of this man, this executive that represents the worst of the worst of the system, his death brings us back to the reality which we actually can change. The high guard of Healthcare aren't invincible, maybe the system isn't either. We all just watched a man die in the street, but most of us have watched people far more important to us die before, sacrificed for people like him. A lot of us have had to fight endless pointless hours to receive something which _every single human around us_ believes and knows is completely necessary, just to eventually be allowed the privilege of being charged impossible amounts for treatment your need. Die or debt, the system says. It's just so nice to not be the one in the system that's scared, even if only for a moment. Life is not neal breen, most likely this won't trigger a revolution or any lasting change, besides executives becoming harder to kill and more detached from regular life of normal people. But could this work? If our political system is have a hard time making bastard megacorporations treat us like people, we'll executive assassinations work? What kind of fear will happen and is it the kind that will make them want to fix problems? Seems like that might require some kind of movie-esque hacking the tv channels and presenting your demands along with actions to back it up. Will this change anything?
- djohnston 2y agoIf they manage to catch this guy, it would be fascinating to watch jury selection. Trying to find people who haven’t been fucked by health insurance will be near impossible. I would bet he walks regardless of evidence.
- OutOfHere 2y agoBut juries have been brainwashed into believing that they don't have the right of jury nullification of a case, whereas in truth they have always had this implicit right.
- slibhb 2y ago> Trying to find people who haven’t been fucked by health insurance will be near impossible What world do you live in?
- berbec 2y agoAmerica
- wholinator2 2y agoI'll add my voice and say you must be pretty damn privileged, either in health or money, to have never experienced a loved one or yourself being actively degraded and attacked by the insurance state. The people on the phone are nice, but the company would rather you died, sorry. Also, for you to state such a question tells me you're not only privileged, but completely unrecognizing of that privilege, attributing incredible luck to some kind of innate power, or just very unempathetic or un plugged in to the reality of the people at Starbucks, or target, or anywhere else that people serve you. They denied one third of every claim sent. Even indirectly, just the culture change of doing that has and will undoubtedly kill thousands of people who are afraid or helpless to even try to use this evil system.
- nemo44x 2y agoI was thinking about that earlier - I'm not sure they could find 12 jurors to convict the guy.
- 2y ago
- linsomniac 2y agoOur collective reaction to this event makes it clear that there is substantial support for massive changes to the for-profit insurance industry. But every time we've tried to make it a public benefit, those attempts have fallen flat. Sure seems like the industry is able to lobby and market it's way to staying alive, despite the ire of the people paying them. Decades ago I recall a previous attempt at moving towards a one-payer system, and it having some traction. My mother had some fairly serious health issues, and had many battles with getting insurance claims paid, living month to month in a single mother salary. Yet she also was firmly of the opinion that a one-payer system would be terrible, parroting the marketing of the industry advertising campaigns. Despite having a daughter in law that was Canadian, who's mother went through cancer and had superb care under a single-payer system.
- fasa99 2y agoIt's a frying pan or the fire situation. The frying pan is government healthcare. The collective US thinks the government run program is a garbage fire. Obvious reasons are that (1) it's really hard to fire bad employees government wise since employment is seen as a right and (2) it's really hard to get anything done since people think of 9999 ways to "be nice" as rights. Then, clearly for-profit institutions are also a garbage fire since they make that extra 10% revenue off of unnecessary suffering. There is a great counterexample that is Kaiser. They are a private health insurance org that provides massive savings by simultaneously also running a network of hospitals and outpatient facilities. Notably they are not-for-profit. So that's perhaps what we're shooting for "all the goodwill of government, without the mucuousy bureaucratic slop in any government institution" If only all the private sector orgs were Kaiser, not for profit and for the well being of humanity. Kaisers of the world are a flash in the pan, "don't be evil" googles only to become "be evil" googles. I would simply recommend to look at how Singapore does things and copy that, after all, that's what China did and look how well they have done economically.
- throwaway48476 2y agoIt's complicated. Health insurance is expensive because healthcare is expensive. Different countries have approached this differently. In the UK the doctor will see you in 5 years, in China the government sponsors snake oil ( traditional Chinese medicine), and in Canada they introduced MAID (the 'just kill yourself now' health plan).
- blitzar 2y agoThe murder could have been avoided if the bad guy had a gun.
- tzs 2y agoHow does having a gun help when the person is shot from behind?
- gregw2 2y agoUnitedHealthcare knows about HIPPA but somehow this past year or so leaked (through one of their business partners iirc?) the Social Security Numbers PII of 100+ million Americans, an act which while perhaps inevitable can never be undone, also leaking the numbers of my three young kids which as a dad I now have to mildly worry about for the next few decades. Nobody deserves to be murdered, there are way worse things where life itself is at stake as described in this article, and as someone working with databases and security over decades I know people in glass houses shouldnt throw stones. But I am not a fan of these guys and I thought perhaps a few on this forum would appreciate this nerdly? petty? but also slightly serious vent and point.
- rimunroe 2y agoCorrection to a common, minor mistake: it's HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, not HIPPA.
- seanicus 2y agoWas it CHANGE? My kid has already had his data exposed by companies affiliated with UHC twice. He's not even in Kindergarten yet.
- gregw2 2y agoyes related tidbits: * UHC only acquired CHANGE 2-3 years ago hoping for AI gold. data is sometimes nuclear waste, eh? * unconfirmed by me if CHANGE was UHC vendor prior to acquision but seems likely * Biden DOJ blocked the acquisition since it gave UHC access to competitor info managed by CHANGE, then later caved * some CHANGE server didnt have MFA but was "supposed to" ... but theres probably more not disclosed * it's widely (unusual for a hack) reported UHC did pay the hacker 22 million ransomware. maybe our kids numbers were saved but nobody actually saying that * The hacker claiming responsibility for the hack was arrested in russia just now (see krebs blog). Within 72hrs of the assasination. No way thats a coincidence. Havent seen that angle reported yet though. Surely some strings being pulled or heat applied somewhere...
- scruple 2y ago
- jredwards 2y agoAn amusing side-story: > Normally, trolling and sadistic glee over a person’s death are relegated to the margins on extremist sites like 4chan or X ever since Elon Musk purchased the platform. Media outlets are now outright referring to Xitter as an extremist site.
- subjectsigma 2y agoI noticed that as well. I’m of two minds - on one hand Gizmodo is a total rag and they’re not above that kind of shit slinging. On the other hand, they kind of have a point…
- WatchDog 2y agoThe author must have never used teddit
- ausbah 2y agoi mean yeah? it’s pretty easy to find white supremacy, anti-semitism, overt racism, etc with a little of search from the home page. reddit and other sites have their fair share, but twitter is the only large only that encourages or at least doesn’t push against this sort of content
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Kye 2y agoDon't leave a trail of bodies behind you if you want me to care when you die. Some of those bodies were friends, family, and members of my communities.
- daft_pink 2y agoI feel similarly. I don’t want the guy to die, but I’m not shocked that he was murdered. I’m not sure that anyone feels UnitedHealthcare as a for profit health insurance company really helped them in their life besides their employees. Most people I know feel their company adopted them as a cost savings option and severely degraded their plans from a BCBS plan.
- drweevil 2y ago>"The sometimes celebratory attitude of such a broad swath of Americans on Wednesday felt like an embrace of that same sort of nihilism." I couldn't disagree more with this facile comparison. The thing is, we all are someone's loved one, beloved father/mother, etc. And yet the people decrying these reactions shrug and walk away when the victim is anonymous and the violence comes in the form of denying people life-saving care--for profit--something that happens routinely in this country. It isn't a 9mm bullet, but it is just as deliberate and every bit as devastating to those involved, as all too many of us are. And it sure doesn't help matters when peaceful political attempts at solving this problem are constantly derailed by this powerful industry's lobby.
- nradov 2y agoEvery healthcare system in the world including the socialized ones denies some patients life-saving care. Care will always be rationed regardless of whether some entities are making a profit.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y agoThe reason for the denial is important. Also worth noting that our attempts to improve availability are actively resisted to maintain that profit.
- mike503 2y agoYeah, denying because it means more profits isn't okay. The fact that these insurance companies are publicly traded and have to maximize value for shareholders creates even more of the wrong incentives. These should be not-for-profit entities, with appropriate controls.
- nradov 2y agoMany private health insurance companies are not-for-profit, including such large organizations as many of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association licensees, HighMark, EmblemHealth, etc. Their coverage and claim processing policies are pretty similar to the for-profit companies. And private health insurers generally don't make more profit by denying claims. Due to the ACA minimum medical loss ratio rule it's rather the opposite. When claims are denied it's usually due to decisions made by self-funded employers that sponsor health plans for their employees. The insurers are mostly just acting as administrators for those plans rather than providing any real insurance.
- indigo0086 2y ago[flagged]
- tolerance 2y agoI'm going to call the bluff of everyone who condones this (save for the sociopaths) and aver that they are "LARPing". As keen as their justifications may be in hinging on the non-ethics of Brian Thompson and UnitedHealthCare, I think that quietly, most people are relieved that this is an event among countless events that will wash away with time and the cycle of news and that they are afforded this brief flame of solace to voice their frustrations from the comfort of their own homes, minds and devices, without having to practically consider the dissolution of society that the crime represents and advances.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThere's a bit in Dickens's Christmas Carol where Scrooge sees the generally pleased reaction to his death. Wonder if any other CEOs are seeing this reaction today as a visit from the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
- ryandrake 2y agoI doubt it. Besides being generally physically isolated from the rest of the proletariat, they're all living in a social/professional bubble full of sycophants where everyone blows smoke up their asses and tells them they are good and correct. I guarantee you not a single Fortune 500 CEO thinks of himself as the bad guy of the movie.
- protocolture 2y agoThe wife saying that the threats to his life were "something about coverage?" sort of hammers this point home.
- swat535 2y agoI'm not sure why anyone would celebrate this, a father was executed in daylight and left a mourning family. Regardless of what you think of a man's deeds, his life had value. If he had done wrong to people, he should be brought to justice via the court of law (in a democratic nation at least..)
- sarlalian 2y agoThe failures of our legal system to hold the wealthy in general and CEO’s in particular accountable for their decisions is why he was gunned down instead of being brought to justice via the legal system. If he killed as many people with a gun or a knife as he has with his decisions as a CEO, he would likely be the most prolific serial killer (though maybe not since there wasn’t a cooling off period). I like many people am not cheering his death, but I’m also not ever going to mourn the death of an objectively terrible person.
- vundercind 2y agoThe family’s rich off money made killing some people and making a ton more suffer. Live by the sword… > If he had done wrong to people, he should be brought to justice via the court of law (in a democratic nation at least..) Even the Sacklers are free and still rich. This is like wishing for a unicorn for Christmas. You want something that flat out isn’t real.
- sterlind 2y agoThis man indirectly killed thousands and left many more sick and destitute. His policies have made countless families mourn. His life had negative value. I celebrate its end.
- mulmen 2y agoInstead of “Americans” this should say “selected social media posts”. It’s not indicative of any consensus among Americans.
- Woodi 2y agoTo me death sentence should be denied, in any form and for absolutely any reason. Also why _health insurance_ needs to have profits ?? It's just like basic school education. Denying some procedures can be rational becouse unefective. But pleas do make health NOT A BUSINESS !!
- bigfatkitten 2y agoTo paraphrase Clarence Darrow, "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."