One story that we couldn’t keep out of the press and that contributed most to my decision to walk away from my career in 2008 involved Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old leukemia patient in California whose scheduled liver transplant was postponed at the last minute when Cigna told her surgeons it wouldn’t pay. Cigna’s medical director, 2,500 miles away from Ms. Sarkisyan, said she was too sick for the procedure. Her family stirred up so much media attention that Cigna relented, but it was too late. She died a few hours after Cigna’s change of heart.
Ms. Sarkisyan’s death affected me personally and deeply. As a father, I couldn’t imagine the depth of despair her parents were facing. I turned in my notice a few weeks later. I could not in good conscience continue being a spokesman for an industry that was making it increasingly difficult for Americans to get often lifesaving care.
One of my last acts before resigning was helping to plan a meeting for investors and Wall Street financial analysts — similar to the one that UnitedHealthcare canceled after Mr. Thompson’s horrific killing. These annual investor days, like the consumerism idea I helped spread, reveal an uncomfortable truth about our health insurance system: that shareholders, not patient outcomes, tend to drive decisions at for-profit health insurance companies.
This is exactly why healthcare cannot be a private service. Companies will optimize the patients out of the equation in search of more profit.
The only way it could not be devastating if there was a competing service that had no profit incentive like a public healthcare system.
reveal an uncomfortable truth about our health insurance system: that shareholders, not patient outcomes, tend to drive decisions at for-profit health
For any diabetics on Lemmy this is the exact same sentiment I hate about dexcom. My son has autism and cannot manage his own diabetes, this his G7 is a lifesaver literally for my ex and I to manage his diabetes for him.
Numerous interactions with the company, and his Endo, have made is very clear that diabetics are second to making money in all their decision making at dexcom. It’s disgusting. For the record I’m a Canadian as well, and because of the autism we get the G7 via a government subscription at no cost. That doesn’t mean we don’t still have to deal with dexcom on all bullshit issues like sensor failures.
What a frustrating article. We have an author that admits to being part of an effort to decrease access to healthcare and refers to the death of a monster in a human suit as a tragedy. He also admits he fucked up and has gone on to work with organizations that advocate for the right to healthcare.
I think I’m frustrated with this piece because it feels so lukewarm. Maybe that’s by design so that it reaches a wider audience. I’m just tired of seeing the insurance industry and its executives handled with kid gloves. It is unambiguously evil to make the kind of money they make off of healthcare.
In his own example his company literally killed a child with leukemia and the tone is still so weak.
He cannot escape in his narrative that he got his. He did the damned work and was able to move on with his conscious. He quit, the company replaced him, nothing fundamentally changed. He feels better, kids still dead.
The article isn’t a tale of redemption: it is about deflecting blame from executives to shareholders.
Which is just a subtle way of portraying a publicly traded company as less desireable than a fully privatized company that apparently would make different decisions about how to profit off dying people.
Oh I’ve read his book he’s great. I see a lot of people here debating his morality but the important aspect of his book is that he describes the actual tactics in detail.
Maybe it should be illegal for certain industries to be publicly traded companies. The pursuit of profit to please faceless investors is a recipe for blind and insatiable pursuit of profit. The stock market is basically a ponzi scheme at this point with so many layers separating humans on one end from the humans on the other end of the profit/product dynamic, that it becomes a system that blindly drives itself.
it took an impromptu visit to a free medical clinic, held near where I grew up in the mountains of East Tennessee, to come face to face with the true consequences of our consumerism strategy.
At a county fairground in Wise, Va., I witnessed people standing in lines that stretched out of view, waiting to see physicians who were stationed in animal stalls. The event’s organizers, from a nonprofit called Remote Area Medical, told me that of the thousands of people who came to this three-day clinic every year, some had health insurance but did not have enough money in the bank to cover their out-of-pocket obligations.
That shook me to my core. I was forced to come to terms with the fact that I was playing a leading role in a system that made desperate people wait months or longer to get care in animal stalls or go deep into medical debt.
Quitting before you make CEO could be a smart career move.
Smart staying alive move
And yet he still calls the death of Brian Thompson “tragic.”
The death of a mass murderer is cause for celebration.
I hate this “He had a family that loved him!”
Because while I’m sure that’s true… ya know who else had families that loved them?
The various people who died of treatable illness because this assclown denied the healthcare THAT THEY PAID INTO in order to save a couple of dollars despite wiping his ass with Benjamins on the regular.
To his co-workers, Brian Thompson was just another suit and tie who punched out at 5 and met up with the boys for drinks before seeing the Mrs.
To his customers, he was the man responsible for the deaths of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters.
Ban For-Profit healthcare
His wife lived separated since 2017.
He got DUI last year.
He wasn’t a saint, he was an asshole in private, like we all knew. The media lied about him.
Stalin and Hitler had families too, doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop being happy they dead
It’s an unfortunate reality of our condition that a few rich people have to die so that the rest of the biosphere may be saved
To be fair, Hitler did have some admirable traits. I mean he did kill Hitler after all.
I wish more fascists would follow the example Hitler left for them in that bunker of his…
It kind of meets classical definition of tragic in that his downfall was the result of his own actions.
It is tragic that it takes an assassination to bring the deplorable condition of our healthcare system to the front of the public consciousness, and also tragic if that’s what it takes to effect change. The karmic justice itself doesn’t have to be tragic for the event to be “tragic”.
The only good exec is an ex-exec.
Thankfully, since this one retired of his own volition, it is no longer necessary to retire him.
TBF he is still an exec. Just not an insurance exec.
Wendell Potter, a former vice president for corporate communications at Cigna, is the president of the Center for Health and Democracy and writes the newsletter “Health Care Un-Covered.”
The Center for Health and Democracy(CHD) is a non-profit organization led by renowned healthcare expert and insurance industry whistleblower Wendell Potter that works to transform America’s system of health coverage. The organization’s core belief is that healthcare should be driven not by industry profits and greed, but by the needs and rights of every American to get the quality care they need without concern for cost.
hm. yeah. i’m still cool with him being exempted from Claims Adjustment.
We call it playing Mario Party over here
oh man i love that
when luigi wins by doing nothing XD
Your whole argument that every execs deserve to die got disproved as you can not generalize like everyone as part of this group and your response that this Individuum is like the one to get an exception? How does killing executives change anything? In the current system its a post that needs to be filled and in don’t think its an outrageous statement to say self-justice and murder shouldn’t be used unless they’re last resort and its not like a CEO is the owner of a company that can do whatever they want to steer it. Although they have quite a bit of leeway
all generalizations are false, including this one
it is normal to refine a position over time
technically non-profit organizations have executives too
also hyperbole is a thing that exists - a shortcut to loosely sketch out one’s vibe before getting lost in the nitty gritty details. Because we are mortal and do not have perfect recall or perfect communication. My perception of even the color “red” might differ from yours. At some point we all have to either accept that we’re working with sloppy and imprecise tools and have to improvise with what we have or just not do anything at all.
you COULD chill. that IS an option. just in case nobody ever informed you.
Of course killing CEOs like that evil f*** head are matters of last resort. It’s long past last resort, many people have already died and many more will because of their actions. When is the last resort if not now?
You asked how killing executives changes anything, but we saw effects the day after that evil f*** face died. Another insurance company was trying to do something really s***** and they walked back their policy because of it. So you can pretend that violence doesn’t solve any problem, but only if you, to paraphrase the Onion, ignore all of human history.
I think it’s tragic. I really wish that what happened wasn’t so good for the lulz. I wish people weren’t as evil as that f***** up CEO. But we live in f***** up times.
The corporal structure itself makes people with certain traits and low empathy rise through the ranks. It a systematic issue. I would not call a person that is doing their job outright evil unless their whole own wish is to kill, torture and emotionally destroy others. Violence can lead to change. One murder cannot. Killing all healthcare CEOs will not. You’d need to replace the government. But that would be really violent and probably cause more suffering in the process. In a democracy if you can actually convince the masses you can shape a country. I like the current public debate, just not the way it was sparked.
If your job involves making decisions that are likely to lead to the deaths of thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of other people, you have the moral obligation to consider what’s right. There’s no chance that people with those jobs haven’t thought about the effects of their actions. They are knowingly and willingly pressing the button that says to kill more people in order to make more money.
We agree it’s their job to do that. The fact that their job itself leads to immoral decisions is one issue, but that doesn’t absolve them of personal responsibility.
Do you honestly think that if all of the large healthcare CEOs were shot tomorrow that the people who replaced them would not think twice about the policies that led to said shootings? Just out of basic self-preservation they would cut back on some of the worst policies. Of course they would try to find other ways to get the same results. They would probably also beef up their own security teams. In other words, it would be a partial temporary solution, which is maybe better than no solution at all, but not as good as universal healthcare.
Hi, I think you underestimate how much extra effort it takes to read your comment with that excessive level of self censorship.
That’s voice to text, I’m really f****** sorry about it. But I didn’t center myself. Google censored me.
It is exactly as I expected.
I was an intake rep for an insurance site. It sucked. I was so disenfranchised that I chose a new career. Now I work at an elementary school, and it’s awesome!
Having said that, the glee that I see people projecting about Mr. Thompson’s murder is horrible.
The fact that so many instances on Lemmy celebrate murder–especially .world–disgusts me.
UnitedHealthcare sucks. The insurance industry sucks.
Murder is never the way to solve those issues though.
I mean, you are right, murder shouldn’t be the way to change this. But one has to look at the whole thing and wonder, can it change through non-violent means at all? People have been long complaining about the system, there’s groups advocating for universal/free healthcare for a long time. How much change did that bring? Maybe the murder will have similar small impact in the long run, we will have to see. But then actions will just get increasingly more extreme over time.
But one has to look at the whole thing and wonder, can it change through non-violent means at all?
Doesn’t matter. I will never advocate murder. I don’t care what the argument is. If you don’t like a product, then don’t use it. But don’t fucking murder a person walking down the street because you are pissed at the company he works for.
Thank God that most of society doesn’t think the way Lemmy does when it comes to this subject!
I had a shit insurance company. They never paid any of my claims. So you know what I did? I dropped them. I went uninsured because the insurance company wasn’t doing shit. So I stopped giving them money.
And you know what? If everyone did that, then the health insurance company would go out of business. You don’t HAVE to pay for health insurance if you feel it’s denying every fucking claim. Because if they are denying every claim, then you don’t really have health insurance. So you are no worse off for not having it.
The Democrats didn’t do shit about it. The Republicans didn’t do shit about it. But if we all stopped paying premiums, then guess what? People would wake up.
But you don’t fucking murder people to make your point. I don’t give a fuck what your point is.
Luigi committed murder. The jury won’t let him off just because they don’t like insurance companies. I hope he gets life in prison. Lemmy can feel free to write him all the fan letters they want, but doesn’t change my mind about it.
No amount of deepthroating rich murderous boot will save you when your turn comes to face off to your insurance company, and it will come.
No amount of deepthroating murdering scumbags like Luigi will save you when it comes to your bitching about society on Lemmy.
Also Luigi was one of the rich people you all seem to hate so much. And his family was rich.
And I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison and is all pissed off because prison doesn’t have very good vegan options and doesn’t recycle. :)
If everyone dropped their health insurance tomorrow, a lot more people would die and face bankruptcy and homelessness. People don’t want to hurt themselves in order to change the system; they want to hurt their oppressors in order to stop the oppression.
I’m talking about people who think that every claim is being denied. If every claim you are posting is being denied, then you don’t really have insurance.
And regardless, murdering someone isn’t the answer.
So, what is your view or a way to change? As you say, not everyone is getting their claims denied, but we all have to go through bs claim denial that is thrown at us so that the profits of our insurers can go up. So what is the answer? Abandoning our insurers isn’t practical, as the poster above you said, so what recommendations do you have?
Murder isn’t the answer. I didn’t say I had a solution. I said that I don’t think murder is the solution. And I don’t care how much hate or how many downvotes I get. I’m not going to advocate murder. Ever.
The problem with your “drop them if they don’t cover you” bit is that people generally won’t find out until something serious happens, and then they’re screwed regardless, OR their employer pays a good chunk of their premiums, so they figure they’re better off to keep that and hope something winds up covered.
Not American, but we studied this in school. The insurance/free market problem is twofold - healthcare is a captive industry, and the knowledge base required to understand what is and isn’t a good plan is well beyond most of the population.
Healthcare is a captive industry in that no one can stop using it entirely. Car insurance? Never get a car, you avoid it. Arguments of car-driven infrastructure aside, that’s not a captive industry. So you, at some point in your life, are going to need healthcare. But, you have no idea how bad it’s going to be, what’s going to be wrong with you, etc. so your needs are extremely unknown. Again, to use a car insurance comparison, your choices are fairly limited here in Canada at least. The govt has set minimum standards that all insurers must provide, and then you can choose to increase above that. But those minimum standards cover enough that you’re very unlikely to be totally screwed with enormous debt after an accident no matter what causes the accident, etc.
This leads to the fact that healthcare is so ridiculously complicated that sorting out what is and isn’t covered by various insurers (who regularly change their plans) is beyond the average person. They have no way of knowing how much a surgery for appendicitis might cost, and if the 2mil max Plan A covers will be enough. Now multiply that by a thousand illnesses.
Healthcare should not be left to the free market - at a minimum, there needs to be a robust, extensive, and functional public insurance to avoid stupidity like bankruptcy from basic, lifesaving surgeries.
Healthcare should not be left to the free market
Totally agree. Murdering an insurance CEO isn’t the answer tho. Which was my original point.
I would agree, except that this has been a problem ongoing for the last twenty years with no progress made by protesting/following legal channels. From my perspective, without the threat of violence, both US parties have too much to gain by maintaining the status quo to respond to general peaceful protesting or trying to legally change things. If your perspective is that these people are causing deaths, and the legal system isn’t willing to change quickly enough, an argument could be made that the slow protests/incremental change is causing more deaths.
except that this has been a problem ongoing for the last twenty years with no progress made by protesting/following legal channels.
Cool. Doesn’t matter. I don’t think murder is the answer, and I will never advocate it. Lemmy will be on the wrong side of history when it comes to this subject. Cold-blooded murder is never the answer.
And if Luigi would have had some Republican tattoos and history and did this, you all would be crying and memeing about how he should be in prison.
You despise the French revolution and thinks it should never have happened?
I’m not talking about the French revolution. I am talking about right now, here in the US.
And I hope Luigi spends the rest of his very long life in prison. He’s a fucking scumbag murderer. I don’t give a fuck what Lemmy thinks.
And I’m talking about another time in history in a country where the elite had taken too many of the resources for themselves, that the average person could no longer accept which, resulted in violence that affected massive changes…
I don’t and won’t advocate murder, bro. You aren’t going to change my mind.
I’m trying to have a discussion and understand your point of view. I’m not trying to change your mind.
I’m just saying that pretty much any time in history where major changes happened in the power structure of a country or region, it happened through violence.
Every thing whe have here in the US came from blood of others. The native Americans, the British, the slaves, the immigrant workers, etc. We wouldn’t be here as a country if it weren’t for revolution, and we wouldn’t be without slaves but for civil war. I know you wish it weren’t true because revolution and war are no fun, but if you think this system will change itself without a fight, I’m afraid you haven’t been paying attention.
I don’t care. Murder is wrong. And I hope Luigi spends the rest of his very long life in prison. He’s a fucking scumbag murderer. I don’t give a fuck what Lemmy thinks.
Murder is wrong.
Is it wrong when a police officer kills a perp in self defense?
Is it wrong when they do it to save the lives of others?
Is it wrong if their boss told them to do it?
Is it wrong if their government told them to do it?
Where do you draw the line on murder?
I think murder is wrong. I’ve said this. No line. Thx.
Corporatist.
Because I disagree with murder? Ok. Cool!
Thank you for stating that point. I really want to like lemmy as I deleted my reddit account and generally like the idea of a federated system a lot more. The people celebrating this murder as and act of heroism has disgusted me to the core. That it’s so widely believed violence and self-justice will solve the root cause of this system when it will just affect a symptom but not solve anything in the long run.
From nearly all ethical standpoints this murder was unethical and unjust. I wish I could just turn this discussion off on lemmy since its strong bias of this echo chamber is strongly noticeable. I too hope and think the jury will find a decision that is just.
The only way where I see violence justified is in authoritarian dictatorships, where the public has no sovereignty and the dictator acts willingly harmful to their populace in either exploiting them, attacking them and killing them. Other than that probably in self-defence and situation of war. But this is a completely different scenario. Killing a CEO since you don’t like their company.
Whats next? Killing somebody because you don’t like their face? But I guess we agree on that notion.
From nearly all ethical standpoints this murder was unethical and unjust.
Really? I definitely don’t agree with that. The starting base that you’re likely missing is that this man is directly responsible for the preventable deaths of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. He joined UHC as the CEO in 2021, so has had some time to work and adjust the company. Since he joined, he has changed their policy and implemented measures to deny additional claims (see, chatbot rejecting peoples claims), causing their denial rate to skyrocket to ~30%. Source is here in the XLS files the government provides. UnitedHealtcare claims it pays 90% of claims but hasnt actually provided data showing that.
Since his company posted enormous, increasing profits in every year he was CEO, and the denial rates, I’d argue he’s led the company to deny healthcare claims.
Some easy ethical frameworks where this is acceptable?
Utilitarianism - you could argue that killing him has caused companies to back off other healthcare cuts (see BlueCross and their anaesthesia cuts). The ripples it has caused are likely to impact what decisions CEOs of other healthcare organizations make regarding patient care and denials.
Natural law theory essentially argues that law and morality are separate. An example that might be clearer is slavery - I’d argue killing a slaver is morally correct, because I believe that slavery is immoral, even is slavery is legal in that country. I believe that healthcare should not be a for-profit industry, and that denying people care to prioritize “line goes up” is immoral. Those who are making the decisions to do that are thus directly contributing to the preventable deaths of countless people.
Rousseau talks about the social contract theory, and basically says if a government approves immoral actions (which I count for-profit healthcare as), they forfeit their legitimacy, and thus people have the right to rebel.
Retribuutivism by Kant argues punishment should be proportional to the crime. If you accept that he is responsible for deaths (not legally responsible, but morally), then this is definitely moral, though its worth noting Kant though murder is a serious, irreversible action and recommended other options before murder.
I could keep going, but those are the easy ones.
Yet those companies will probably just postpone these policies until the public has cooled off of the topic.
Rule utilitarianism states that “an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good”. Murder as a general is right. The reason is that this murder is just a short-term thing that doesn’t undo all the deaths that have happened. The general abidance to rule of law without self-justice is worth way more than any single person dying in nearly all cases.
In the categorical imperativ Kant argues that you should “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” If it became a universal law that you could kill anyone you deemed evil this would end in a worse result for everybody. Thus it cannot be wanted.
The family and friends around him mourn and the new CEO seems like he is not about to roll over and accept every health insurance claim. The death is dividing citizens which believe he is a hero while others believe he is a murderer. The responsibility off of all those unneeded deaths are claimed by not only the CEO but also by legislators who didn’t account for universal healthcare. It is on the sitting government and parties for not supporting change. It is on the employer partly for not buying a higher premium package that includes more things or choosing a different company with a smaller denial rate. It is on the individual employee inside UH denying claims. It is on upper management like Brian Thompson and the people around him who are at fault for making this worse. And then there’s the stakeholders that don’t press on more ethical practices. Then its also on Americans voting against parties that wish to change the healthcare system in a beneficial way for everybody.
As the head of a company Brian Thompson also had the responsibility to steer it in an ethical way which it seems he did not do. His death has sparked public debate which is a good thing. This does not necessarily mean choosing a murder was the right way of doing things that optimizes utility for everybody.
The only statement you made was about Utilitarianism. Every other argument built on that. Retribuutivism for example is a legal concept and the punishment is not chosen by a person but written down in law.
I also agree with the sentiment that law and morality are different from each other but I do still not see this murder as morally right. UH is just one of many healthcare insurers and if the problem was solved legislatively it would benefit everyone.
I appreciate you approaching my statement from a logical standpoint and not just slinging insults at me like some other people. I believe we do not have to share the same view to get along or have an interesting conversation.
The people celebrating this murder as and act of heroism has disgusted me to the core.
Thank you for being brave enough to agree with me! As forward-thinking as the idea of Lemmy and the Fediverse is, I was super disappointed at how much people here are celebrating cold-blooded murder. Luigi is no hero. He legit walked up behind a guy and murdered him. Totally cowardly way too. Shot him in the back!
I’ll stay on Lemmy for now, because I know that most people here have no emotional maturity. I feel that most will look back on this like older people look back on their early cringy, edgy Myspace emo phase.
Thank goodness that most of society does NOT agree with Lemmy on this. All of their talk about “Jury will never find the guy guilty!!” is BS. The jury will find him guilty. Rightfully so.
The guy is a terrorist. And Lemmy admin should realize that many, and I mean MANY posts to Lemmy lately could def raise FBI alarms.
I see people on here saying stuff like, “Don’t talk about your plans here, it’s too public. DM me for the next target…”
Lemmy thinks they are planning some sort of revolution. It’s not a revolution. It’s edgy hippy vegans talking about murdering rich people.
And admins are gonna find out real quick that hey are letting shit get out of hand.
He basically facilitated mass murder… Most people will feel good when such a person is killed.
Murder of high level people has always been a very effective way for the lower classes to fight back when the elite has taken too much for themselves. It’s often the only way to affect change if the elite is corrupt enough.
The problem is it’s not good for stability which hurts the stock markets and the elites.
I hope Luigi spends the rest of his very long life in prison. He’s a fucking scumbag murderer. I don’t give a fuck what Lemmy thinks.
The thing is, Brian Thompson himself is a murderer, and now he can never kill again.
So if you think murder is ok, then what Brian Thompson did isn’t wrong either. So insurance execs can just think, “Well, they murder us, it must be ok to murder them!”
See how that works?
So no, murder isn’t the answer. And I hope Luigi spends the rest of his very long life in prison.
It’s sad that you’re getting down voted. That does not bode well
Right? Lemmy is rapidly approaching a mindset where they think that it’s ok to murder people they don’t like. CEO’s now. Anyone they don’t agree with, next.
Doesn’t matter though. Society is NOT Lemmy, and the majority of society doesn’t agree with Lemmy’s views. Thankfully.
Luigi is going to prison, no matter how mad Lemmy is about it.
Please stop interacting with children you are awful
you are awful
Because I don’t advocate murder?! Say what?!
Too myopic to be a good caregiver.
You’d let a kid run into traffic because “grabbing their arm would be against the rules”
I don’t give a fuck how you frame it. Or try to bully me. I don’t and I won’t advocate murder.
And Luigi is going to prison. And I can’t wait until he gets sentenced, and then I’ll come on here and watch you all bitch and moan about it.
Lol
He’s going to prison. Accept it. :)
There’s a difference between being in jail and being morally in the wrong 🤡
The conclusion of this essay should be neither surprising nor outrageous. A corporation is a machine specifically designed for the sole purpose of maximizing shareholder value. If that’s not what it’s doing, it’s malfunctioning.
We the people have, via our elected representatives, chosen to have a system where corporations control what healthcare we can receive. If you want to blame someone (which isn’t productive) then blame the fellow Americans whose votes have supported and continue to support the current system. They’re the ones whose job is to make decisions guided by morality.
Blaming corporations is particularly unproductive because they can’t make decisions guided by morality. If they appear to do so, it’s because creating that appearance is expected to maximize shareholder value and the appearance will be maintained only as long as it continues to maximize shareholder value.
People laugh at the products with warnings on them against doing something that should obviously be a bad idea. Well this thing says “aim away from face” and the public keeps aiming the thing at its face. Whose fault is that?
How can you blame millions of people and feel content to leave it at that?
I cannot help but ask why a bear steps into a bear trap. And when I learn why the bear steps into the bear trap, I cannot help but stop blaming the bear.
I think it’s ironic and even darkly funny that people maintain a system that most of them hate, and that they blame the part of that system that has the least ability to do anything other than what it does, but I don’t blame anyone. As I said, blame isn’t productive in this situation. (What would it even mean to blame “fellow Americans”?)
Blame doesn’t even provide the satisfaction of knowing who to hate, despite what some confused people think. The responsibility is so diffuse that it isn’t even responsibility anymore. Each person is just a snowflake in an avalanche.
I do support attempts to improve the system, although so far that has meant only that I voted for Democrats. I’m just a single snowflake too.
