Brian Thompson, R.I.P.
The outpourings of public grief are very impressive. It would be hard to top the vigils at the Dakota after John Lennon’s murder forty-four years ago this December 8, but New Yokers are apparently going all out in pausing in their busy lives to honor the late Brian Thompson.
One visitor from Southern California is quoted as saying, “I haven’s seen so many spontaneous roadside memorials since I drove through Little Saigon in Westminster, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana just after Lt. Calley’s death was announced.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-mental-health-care-denied-illegal-algorithm?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature
“(UHC) is one of the ten most profitable companies in the world. …..While the massive insurer — one of the 10 most profitable companies in the world — offers plans to (40 million) people (throughout the entire U.S.A.), it answers to no single regulator.”
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New York Times: “Torrent of Hate for the Health Insurance Industry”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/americans-little-sympathy-murdered-health-223930677.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/nyregion/social-media-insurance-industry-brian-thompson.html
The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/07/brian-thompson-unitedhealthcare
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait just a freak-flag moment!!!! Why is there much a vociferous lack of compassion for a fellow American who is no different than a professional athlete or a professional politician- just another guy trying to make a good living and provide for his family? Mr. Thompson had a wife and two children. What part of their sorrow do you not understand?
First of all, the health care Americans were provided before 2016 was fairly mediocre. But as I’m sure you remember, Donald Trump promised that we as a nation would have “fantastic” and “beautiful” health care if we elected him president. And he fulfilled that promise, as far as I can see. I’m not sure why he talked about “the concept of a plan” in the 2024 campaign debate with Kamala Harris, since our health care system is “fantastic” and “beautiful” after he got to work in his first term.
And new that he is returning to the White House for another four years, why don’t people realize that whatever new plan he has will be even more fantastic and beautiful. Over 70 million people voted for him, so I assume their health care is nothing short of incredible.
So, in the absence of any public comment by both President-Elect Trump and President Biden, please join with me in chanting: “CEO Lives Matter!” “CEO Lives Matter!”
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But before we protest this senseless murder of a hard-working CEO, let’s review some recent history.
Within days after a police officer in Minneapolis publicly knelt on George Floyd’s neck long enough to cause his death, protests broke out across the United States. “Black Lives Matter” roiled social discourse to such an extent that President Trump considered taking extreme measures to quell the outrage that tens of millions of people felt, not just about Floyd’s execution but the long, often repressed history of police brutality.
In contrast, following the assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, I have not heard of a single public demonstration that rebukes this action. Where is the outrage now? Is a CEO’s life any less valuable than George Floyd’s? Americans should be flooding the streets demanding congressional action now to make sure this kind of tragedy never happens again. Instead, they remain silent, or worse still, get snarky, and in doing so, are complicit in the assassination.
Let’s be clear about this: the assassin’s real target was the profit-making system of health care in this country. Those of us who believe that profits are more important than people need to speak up now; otherwise, the assassin’s attempt to intimidate corporations from the perfectly legal ways they conduct business will result in the collapse of the health care economy, which is the most prosperous in the world!
Unfortunately, there is a disinformation campaign going on tn the United States that claims health insurance companies engage in what is termed “delay and deny.” What is needed is not less “delay and deny” but even more “delay and deny.” People who enroll in these insurance policies need to understand that they are nothing more than a herd of cows being nurtured until it’s time to pass through the slaughterhouse of hospice care. The food industry model is the template upon which health care shapes its policies.
CEOs Lives Matter! Be the first one in your community to make a sign and stand at a freeway entrance or major intersection! Be willing to block traffic and get arrested. If you don’t protest, you are indeed expressing your approval of the agenda of the assassin of UHC’s CEO.
Footnote: Should anyone think my invocation of “profit” is off-the-mark, I would like to cite this recent article in The New Yorker/
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/what-the-murder-of-the-unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-means-to-america?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_120724&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=5bea15dc24c17c6adf1d75ea&cndid=50555100&hasha=7caeec83f7eb1d1e07520665f3b23972&hashb=96cf50f0c09e5a1d79e45f7efc213ce05278e7f8&hashc=37c43a5c3a11da12bdc55f9c622d0baf0ec7493490d9327a7099d22dd53e6a5e&esrc=bounceX&mbid=CRMNYR012019
“Of course, the solution, in the end, can’t be indifference—not indifference to the death of the C.E.O., and not the celebration of it, either. But who’s going to drop their indifference first? At this point, it’s not going to be the people, who have a lifetime of evidence that health-insurance C.E.O.s do not care about their well-being. Can the C.E.O. class drop its indifference to the suffering and death of ordinary people? Is it possible to do so while achieving record quarterly profits for your stakeholders, in perpetuity?”
My answer to the last question in that paragraph is “No.” An emphatic no.
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Former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis has weighed in on the public’s apathy about this political assassination:
“I’ve been watching it, and I’ve been shocked by it,” Davis told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday. “It’s actually troubling to see it, and I really am surprised that people are reacting that way considering the tragic loss here and the violence of what happened.”
He added: “It’s a huge problem. People’s lack of sympathy is really troubling. And the problem with that is, the people who have this kind of animosity, simply because of the circumstances may not be prone to help—and the police are really looking for help from the public on this.”
If I could interview Mr. Davis, I would ask him to comment on the difference between “lack of sympathy” and “animosity.” One can lack sympathy for someone else’s plight without feeling animosity.
Definition:
: a strong feeling of dislike or hatred : ill will or resentment tending toward active hostility : an antagonistic attitude.
Mr. Thompson’s assassin felt extreme animosity toward a specific hearth insurance company. The public trolling of Mr. Thompson’s assassination is a reflection of the widespread belief that some health insurance companies treat those they insure with te same callousness with which Thompson’s assassin disposed of him. The only difference is that one execution is carried out in a manner hidden from public disoourse, Mr. Davis.
Hostility means that someone will act in a pugnacious manner. I have not heard of anyone impeding the police search for this murderer. “The police need the public’s help,” is the current plea. “And what would we get in return for that help?” I would ask. Would police refuse to follow orders and not physically attack demonstrators against the injustices of a capitalist system? When the police show they are willing to help those who oppose the deleterious behavior of large corporations, instead of serving as their enforcers, then perhaps the public will give more help in a case such as this one.
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Breaking news on Monday, December 9, 2024
An influencer by the name of Michael McWhortle urged his followers to “cooperate with authorities” and perhaps that inspired someone in Altoona, Pennsylvania to contact police when they spotted someone who seemed to be a possible suspect.Apparently, this “person of interest” is alleged to have had a ghost gun, a fake i.d., and a handwritten manifesto denouncing the health care insurance industry. It’s a little hard to believe that someone who planned a murder in considerable detail would have retained the very things that would be most likely to convict him. If tis is true, it goes to show that an “ordinary” individual criminal is no different than a group of government bureaucrats. “What’s the exit strategy?” is the first question anyone should ask before they undertake any task that affects other people’s lives. President Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld all failed to ask that question before they manipulated information to justify te invasion of Iraq. Imagine the deaths of thousands of people whose lives were just as important to them as Brian TWompson’s life was to himself and his family, and with that magnification begin to comprehend the confounding amount of sorrow that afflicts people in Iraq. Brian Thompson’s family no doubt is very sad, but the grief that first needs to be acknowledged is not Thompson’s family or cohort of business executives, but the long forestalled apology that the people of the United States owe to the people of Iraq.
For the record, it appears that the name of the “person of interest” alleged to have targeted Urine/You’reinHorricCare Health Insurance CEO Brian Thompson is Luigi Mangione.
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