Violence as Medicine
America has spoken. It doesn’t like oligarchs. They should listen.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot to death outside New York City Hilton hotel in the early morning of December 4th. As I’m writing this, the man who was filmed gunning down Thompson by a security camera is still at large.
America loves him.
The hero America wants?
I am not calling this shooter a hero. But it is clear that much of America sees him in such light.
This isn’t surprising. Everyone hates the insurance industry. And many Americans know, and more will find out each day, that the rest of the developed world has universal health care, and America has a system where you can only get service – sometimes for lifesaving treatment – if a giant corporation can make a profit off of that service.
The business model of the health insurance industry in America is to charge high fees and then try to weasel out of providing services. It is a great business model if you own lots of shares in Health Insurance companies. It is a terrible business model if you are, you know … a person.
So, when a gunman kills the CEO of a large American corporation which is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths because healthcare was denied or delayed, there is not surprisingly little sympathy for the CEO from the masses.
If you want to see how America feels about this issue, go to the comments section of any news story about the shooting. I clipped the following from one such story. This is pretty consistent with what I saw elsewhere. There is nearly ZERO sympathy for a father, husband and fellow human being, because he was the head of a company that many Americans see as evil:
Killing people is wrong
Uhh, do the insurance companies know that?
My sympathy is out of Network.
Killing people is wrong yet health care insurance providers do this everyday when they deny necessary life saving treatments
Wealthy CEOs who gouge the public are sleeping poorly tonight
Sounded like self defense to me
The United States isn’t a country, it’s a business
Frankly I’m surprised that it took this long
Dear police, we saw nothing, sincerely, everyone.
This is just the start.
Eat the rich
My condolences are with patients having an agonizing loss of life and being denied coverage. It was pretty quick for the CEO.
Remember, if you see the suspect out in public … No you didn’t.
That CEO had more blood on his hands than most military commanders throughout history .
It’s funny how surprised they are that we hate them lol
The media be like “We’re shocked to learn that the guy running the extortion and murder factory has been murdered.”
Sympathy claim DENIED.
The one thing that united the country
It was inevitable that one day somebody in the US would wake up French
This is only the beginning.
On Friday, for my “Terrifying/Inspiring Thought of the Week” teaser for this story I placed a picture of the screengrab of a photo of the shooter raising his gun, under which I placed the caption “This is only the beginning.”
One of my readers chastised me, saying that what I said wasn’t a propitious way to talk, bringing doom upon us. I thank that reader for keeping me honest. But I wasn’t presaging or condoning vigilantes running around the country murdering CEOs.
When I said, “This is only the beginning,” I meant that this should be the beginning of an awakening in America because no one can deny the problem anymore, and that it must be addressed.
I am not confident that the healthcare problem will be addressed tomorrow, but everyone has seen that America supports a murderer who gunned down a corporate CEO on camera, because that CEO leads an industry that nearly EVERYONE sees as cruel and destructive to most average Americans. In the short term, that will mean companies cranking up security for their executives, insurance companies taking their management teams pictures and details off of their websites, and business leaders complaining about Americans love a murderer and hate for elitea.
They are right. But after the dust settles and people start going back to their daily lives in the coming weeks, no one will be able to put that “America justifies murder if it is an insurance CEO” toothpaste back in the tube.
America, this is your moment to press hard for universal healthcare. Everyone hates the current system. Everyone knows everyone hates it. And a man lost his life because America has insisted on putting corporate profits above the value of human life, and someone decided to take matters into his own hands – he wrote deny, defend, depose on the bullet casings.
CEOs and policymakers can keep the current system and do nothing. If they do that, they need to consider that they live in a country with more guns than people, and the people they would pay to protect them, likely side with the gunman. Nearly everyone in America does.
If the elites do nothing, then this may be the beginning of something violent and sustained that America has shown it is down for.
This is just the beginning of something. I hope it is not the beginning of more violence. But I wouldn’t bet against it.
Violence as medicine.
I am not happy about what happened last week on the streets of New York, but like so many commenters in those message boards, I am not surprised. I too had the thought that I’m a bit surprised this hadn’t happened yet in America.
We are on the precipice of becoming an oligarchic republic, if we aren’t already. I would hope that the elites in power see the public sentiment behind this event and come to the realization that you can’t push the public any further. But I have my doubts.
History has shown us that those in power rarely give up power for the good of society. Cincinnatus and George Washington are celebrated because they are the rare exceptions.
We could be entering an era when the elites keep looking to take more, and more and more people will look to fight back against a system stacked against them in the same way that the vigilante did in the early morning on December 4th in New York.
The answer of course, is to change the system so that we have universal health care in America, as well as a number of other policies that put people before profit. But that usually doesn’t happen by asking nicely.
Is this only the beginning of reform in America, or is it only the beginning of more violence as medicine?
On my Substack, I say:
Asking did not work.
Voting did not work.
Marching did not work.
Our leaders have failed us.
I think that applies here too.
Oh! And - until last year I worked in the claims/records/insurance/billing division of a large-ish university-based health system. Want to know who we hated with the white hot heat of ten thousand suns? Yep. The fucking insurance companies.
The acceleration of multiple crises under Trump are going to be blinding. His buffoon supporters will come for those who are speaking the truth from the perspective of lurching to an uninhabitable planet. Neither the right nor the left has had our backs. We're on our own.