Brian Thompson, victim.

Brian Thompson went from Jewell, lowa
(population 1,200) to leading 140,000
employees and overseeing $280B of revenue
at one of the world's most important
companies. His mom worked as a beautician,
his dad at a grain elevator--they were probably
really proud when he graduated valedictorian
of his 50-person high school class. He played
basketball and the trombone, got elected
homecoming king, and worked in soybean
fields and meat processing plants during
summers. While studying at the University of
lowa, he met the woman who would become
his wife, with whom he would have two kids.
By all accounts, he was smart, hard-working.
funny, and a thoroughly decent man.
This guy--not the person who murdered him in
cold blood--was everything that's right and
good about America, and the American
Dream. May his memory be a blessing, and
may his example inspire all of us to do better.
Yet many mocked him on line.
Pinning on him their frustration with United healthcare group and insurance industry.

 

Now do a biography for every person who died due to United denying them medical care.

 

We must be clear: murder is never acceptable, and it's truly tragic when someone is denied necessary treatment or when insurance companies refuse to cover it. No one should argue against the need for fair and accessible healthcare.

However, as more details emerge, it's important to clarify that Mr. Thompson was not involved in any denial of service to the individual involved in the tragic incident.

While I deeply empathize with those who have faced insurance denials — I've read the horror stories and heard the heartbreaking accounts — the real fight should be in the courts and legislature, not through violence or blame. We need to hold insurance companies accountable through legal action and push for reform at the congressional level.

The responsibility lies with our lawmakers — Senators, Congresspeople, and others in power — to address this systemic issue and ensure that no one is left without the care they need.

 

Nothing justifies extra-judicial killing. Due process is fundamental to a democracy, and this man did not receive it.

That doesn't mean he was a good guy or that his company was, either. But we have processes for that. The people celebrating his murder are wrong-headed and are encouraging the destruction of our society.

We have a slice of our society that has become quite nihilistic. They don't understand the complexities of the challenges around them, so they've taken a "burn it to the ground" attitude. I firmly believe this is the main thrust behind returning a traitorous, corrupt, racist rapist to the White House. They believe his simple answers must be right. They are not.

Democracy in any form is messy. A democratic republic even more so. It lurches forward, ebbs backwards, and slips from side-to-side. But things do get better in the long run. Even more so if you engage in the process. Or, alternately, you can elect a moron to burn it all down.

"For every complex problem, there's a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong" -- H.L. Menken

 

Where was the due process for the victims of insurance companies who denied life-saving care for people?

This man led the implementation of an AI system that had a 90% denial rate and led United to deny nearly 1/3 of medical claims. Where is the justice for the victims? He was a bad man who systematically led to the deaths of thousands to increase profits for himself and other shareholders.

Murder is bad. Both when someone is shot in the street as well as those systemic killed through the denial of care. So far, people here have been defending the former while ignoring the latter.

 

Two separate issues, Brian Thompson murder and US health care.

Murder is bad. PERIOD.

US Healthcare is horrible. We pay by far the most and have bad results. Way too much of the costs go to administrative costs like Health care Insurance. It's horrible. It's bad. PERIOD.

How Does the U.S. Healthcare System Compare to Other Countries?
quote:
There are many possible factors for why healthcare prices in the United States are higher than other countries, ranging from the consolidation of hospitals — leading to a lack of competition — to the inefficiencies and administrative waste that derive from the complexity of the U.S. healthcare system. In fact, the United States spends over $1,000 per person on administrative costs — almost five times more than the average of other wealthy countries and more than it spends on long-term healthcare.
...
Higher healthcare spending can be beneficial if it results in better health outcomes. However, despite higher healthcare spending, America’s health outcomes are not any better than those in other developed countries. The United States actually performs worse in some common health metrics like life expectancy, infant mortality, unmanaged diabetes, and safety during childbirth.
https://www.pgpf.org/article/how-does-the-us-healthcare-system-compare-to-other-countries/

Regarding United Healthcare specifically, that's what I've been using for years. I switched to Humana for a year but switched back to United Healthcare. They are both huge uncaring corporations not very distinguishable as far as I could tell.

 

Two wrongs do not make a right, and this matter cannot be allowed to be settled with violence. Ever. I don't have to judge the victim at all to know that. It is unilaterally wrong without any counter-argument. Nothing can justify this.

 

Nothing justified the people United killed by preventing them from getting access to care either. Murder is murder, and the murder of this CEO doesnt even compare to the numbers United killed. It wasn’t like there were new politics being made by the government or non-violent actions that were successful in curbing the violence stemming from big insurance companies.

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable” -JFK

 

I find the public reaction to be quite fascinating. The Brian Thompson angle, not so much. I believe he came from a blue collar background, rose up in class, and forgot about everyone else. That's pretty typical.

Luigi Mangione's story is complicated, though. I agree with Rich, but my words are going to be harsher. The American public has gotten so dumb, it only understands simple proposed solutions for complex problems. I also agree with NotJoeBiden. If Trump breaks his promises, which he's already doing before taking office, the populists on both sides might resort to...non-governmental solutions. Populism leads to extremism.

There's a lot of misinformation about Mangione's situation because of multiple versions of fake manifestos and rumors from people claiming to know him. Mangione's grandparents went from working class to multi-millionaires, so Mangione's parents grew up rich, and he grew up rich. The family has made most of its money off of their nursing home and assisted living business. Ironically, they've gotten rich off of our broken healthcare system.

At some of their nursing home locations, the demerits are much higher than average, the staff to resident ratio is below average, and over 80% of their patients are soiling themselves because they are not being taken to the bathroom enough. Mangione's father owns a conservative radio station, and one of his family members is a Republican in the Maryland legislature. Mangione appears to be a fan of populists and extremists on both sides of the aisle.

It's been reported that Mangione was not a UHC customer. The stories about the grandparents and the mother not receiving care because of an insurance denial appear to be fabricated. Even if they did have a claim denied, the family has more than enough money to pay for any treatment out of pocket.

Mangione was in line to receive part of a $30 million inheritance his grandmother left, but he might be cut out of that after this stunt. Imagine how many people he could have actually helped with that money. Imagine how many lives he could have positively impacted by taking over partial ownership of their sub-par nursing homes.

According to a Reddit account that is believed to be Mangione's, his back surgery was a success, and he was experiencing no pain at the time, which is odd. It's possible that he did experience pain after making those posts, but he disappeared for several months, and his parents filed a missing person report. My guess, and I am sure that I am right, is that Mangione is dealing with an undiagnosed mental disorder or long COVID. He reported experiencing brain fog during college.

This guy is no hero. He hasn't helped one person with this murder. What is amusing is that Anthem, BCBS, and a couple of other insurance companies' decision to cap payments for anesthesia hours in certain states is a Medicare policy. They won't be going forward with it after a conversation with New York's governor, but these types of caps are what you can expect with single-payer healthcare. Medicare made this policy because of anesthesiologists committing fraud.

People jumping for joy because some rich guy, who likely has schizophrenia, killed someone and those people also donating to his legal fund is very dystopian. People could have been pooling money to pay for people's medical bills.

 

On the Goodreads account apparently belonging to Mangione circa the time of his arrest, he listed as Currently Reading an enthusiastic best-seller about psychedelic drugs, and his longer lists included several books about mycology including a psilocybin mushrooms identification guide.

 

Of course. Luigi loves mushrooms.

 

I dont see any indication of mental illness. Was he radicalized? Yes. Does that mean he is mentally ill? No.

America is a very violent country with easy access to guns. Heck, he 3D printed it. Additionally, income inequality and other socioeconomic issues have lead may to be radicalized against those contributing to systemic issues.

The shooter is a unique case where he was affluent, yet he still had difficulty getting access to proper medical care. Our for-profit healthcare system is so bad that even wealthy families are getting screwed over by it.

 

Radicalized by Peter Thiel, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk?

 

Radicalized by a broken healthcare system. But yes, those guys have ignited a violent right-wing vigilante attitude.

 

After a UnitedHealthcare executive was gunned down on a New York City sidewalk, an eruption of bitter online commentary celebrated the killer’s presumed motive: avenging the denial and delay of health insurance coverage.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/deny-delay-practices-fueling-anger-132522522.html
Many spoke from personal experience. Every year, health insurance companies deny tens of millions of patient claims for medical expense reimbursements, and the tide of those denials has been rising, according to surveys of doctors and other health-care providers. Insurers also have been increasingly demanding that doctors obtain approval before providing treatment, similar surveys show, causing delays in patient care that the American Medical Association says are “devastating.”

 

This faux moral calculus obviously confuses the discriminatory bureaucracy of a business and its resultant harm (not murder by any legitimate definition) and a premeditated public execution. While the involvement of United Healthcare in "murder" through inaction is barely even arguable by any standard definition, it is not remotely tantamount to the violent, premeditated murder of a private citizen. Not only are your comments inherently illogical, they involve the same kind of immoral logic that leads to genocide.

 

The homicide of Thompson, almost certainly by Mangione, was fully morally wrong and humanly tragic.

Remember that many people reacted and discussed the case from the first hours and days – when vastly less was known than today, and even today public information is still early and incomplete.

Hypotheses included that the perpetrator had seen a loved one lose life or limb from an insurance denial, even that the perpetrator himself was terminally ill or severely debilitated from an insurance denial, maybe directly from the same company.

Much of the public discussion and debate was based on hypotheticals like these, or based on outside information about the problems of insurance denials.

Now that public information shows somewhat more about Mangione, some forms of those hypotheticals have been refuted, as sanantone reviews above.

But even assuming the criminal act was his, public information still seems very incomplete about Mangione's mental state, not only as to mental disorder but also as to what type of homicide charge a mens rea indicates.

 

Murder by neglect is still murder. United Healthcare, under CEO Brian Thompson, knowingly and willingly implemented a faulty system to deny people healthcare that they were entitled to. As a result of purposely withholding coverage for essential medical procedures and medicines, people did not receive the care they needed in a timely manner and died. What would you call it if not murder? The price of doing business?

 

I'll try to reference our current legal system here and not what ought to be based upon theological ethics. No, in our present system, certain cases of neglect can result in manslaughter. Unlike manslaughter, murder involves intentionally killing someone. At best, there are some jurisdictions where manslaughter owing to neglect can be categorized as criminal homicide (e.g., 3rd degree murder). However, without support, you've assumed that the (mis)management of paid healthcare benefits constitutes murder. Not only would one need to ignore the specific circumstances of the individual death to make such a claim, your assertion faults United Healthcare for the disease as well as the agency of other persons involved.

Well, that is your claim. But is it murder? Nope. How do you know these people were entitled to this healthcare? Is every situation the same?

You gave away the store there. While we can debate what constitutes "essential medical procedures and medicines" (that is quite a slippery concept these days), you've two-dimensionalized a highly complex set of issues in order to lay a charge of murder that would never hold up in a court anywhere because it is illogical. Since my training is in theology, maybe someone with legal expertise can clarify.

If I own a vehicle and have an auto insurance policy, and that policy lapses for one reason or another, and I get in an accident, is the accident the fault of my insurance company? Has my insurance company robbed me of compensation, and should their executives be prosecuted through public scourging? United Healthcare is a business. Businesses exist to make a profit. If that profit motive did not exist, neither would the services United Healthcare provides. While you may gripe at length about how they provide their services and the relevant stipulations they require, it is extraordinarily wrong to accuse the company of murder because it denied coverage according to this or that policy. I don't necessarily agree with their practices. Still, it is another thing altogether to accuse them of murder and suggest that the violent public execution of the CEO was somehow justified.