Dated: 2024-12-05. Added: 2024-12-05. Alternate title: “After UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Killing, Americans Express Frustration With Health Insurance Industry”.

  • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    It is unclear what motivated the incident or whether it was tied to Mr. Thompson’s work in the insurance industry.

    This is a joke right? Is the Times being sarcastic?

  • Noble Shift@lemmy.worlddeleted by creator
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    2 years ago

    With Allsavers/United, holding the best policy my firm offered, it’s still cheaper for me to fly outside of the US for the procedure(s) and have it completed without insurance That’s all inclusive too, flights, hotels, taxi/uber, the actual operation, for a total of 4 flights, 4 visits/2 procedures and 20 days lodging & food, all combined.

    Not a little mind you, over $40,000 USD upwards toward $60,000 USD saved.

    What the actual fuck?

      • uis@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

        Probably something provided in Europe for free. At least for citizens.

        • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          We have to pay for seeing the nurse before we even get to the doctor and caste part of it. Those are all extra on top of it.

        • AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          I had a hernia and spent a third of my income on health insurance but still has to shell out 16000 from my own pocket for non emergency hernia surgery.

          I hope the copycats make the job of “C-Suite executive at HMO” an unfillable position, but more likely this will finally get the GOP interested in gun control.

          • uis@lemm.ee
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            2 years ago

            In Russian it’s called “расстрельная должность”, which means position, where firing squad eventually visits you.

            • Disaster@sh.itjust.works
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              2 years ago

              Generally in English they’d usually be called “A Patsy” or “Strawman” - someone disposable to do the unpleasant work, whom nobody will particularly miss.

              • uis@lemm.ee
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                2 years ago

                That’s not what I meant. Position, not person, which everyone leaves by being killed(in soviet times) or imprisoned(now).

        • Noble Shift@lemmy.worlddeleted by creator
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          2 years ago

          With Allsavers/United I still ended up out of pocket for two cataract removals and intraocular lenses over $5500.

          The same covers less than 15% for tooth extractions or root canal, 0.0% for implants.

          Thank God I can’t get pregnant.

  • metaStatic@kbin.earth
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    2 years ago

    Messages that law enforcement officials say were found on bullet casings at the scene of the shooting in front of a Midtown hotel — “delay” and “deny”

    That’s next level

  • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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    2 years ago

    The jokes, etc comments aside, the worst thing we can do to health insurance companies is reform our system so they can’t profit off of denying the care our doctors prescribe for us.

    They’re simply middlemen, and this system simply doesn’t exist in other developed countries. They all have better care and they pay less for it. I realize this might be literally impossible to implement during a Trump/GOP presidency, but we as country can do the best thing for ourselves, while also giving the insurance companies the finger by jamming some form of single payer/universal health care.

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    A longtime employee of UnitedHealthcare said that workers at the company had been aware for years that members were unhappy. Mr. Thompson was one of the few executives who wanted to do something about it, said the employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the company does not allow workers to speak publicly without permission.

    In speeches to employees, Mr. Thompson spoke about the need to change the state of health care coverage in the country and the culture of the company, topics other executives avoided, the employee said.

    The speeches:

  • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I have a blatant lack of sympathy for the smug liberal elite at the NYT when the guillotine takes off their heads too

    • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I do not understand this phrase. All elites are authoritarians. Explain what a liberal elite is…? Truly what do you mean by that?

      • sudo@programming.dev
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        2 years ago

        The Bourgeoisie are the elite in liberal democracies, and liberalism is their ideology. Hence the name “liberal elite”.

        Do not confuse liberalism with progressivism or leftism. It’s dead centrist at the moment.

        • crashoverride@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          There’s no such thing as liberal elite. If you’re a liberal and you don’t believe in anyone who is elite, it goes against the ideology.

          • ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 years ago

            Citizen: can we get universal health care?

            GOP: no Dems: no #BLM #LGBTQIA+rights ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

            Basically this.

          • sudo@programming.dev
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            2 years ago

            Ahistorical nonsense. They don’t believe in a nobility by birth, but they absolutely believe that some people “are just better than others” and who should rule. Its so foundational to the ideology that its written into the US Constitution. Anyone who believes that capitalism is a meritocracy (ie Liberals) believes there should be a liberal elite.

          • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            You should try explaining this to the liberal elite. They absolutely believe in it.

            Just look at how they talk about people who live in rural areas.

      • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        The NYT leans heavily liberal. As does most of the pearly clutching mainstream media.

        Also, slightly unrelated, let’s not forget who published known lies leading to the Iraq war, cheerleaded it and slandered anyone who questioned the WMD narrative. They’ve got ~200k lives on their hands.

        Would be a shame if someone deny delay desposed their CEO.

        • teamevil@lemmy.worlddeleted by creator
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          2 years ago

          The billionaire owned media…yeah the only thing liberal about the media is the right wing owners screaming about it. There’s no liberal media

          • sudo@programming.dev
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            2 years ago

            You seem to have some completely backwards idea that liberals are anti-billionaire socialists when liberalism is pro-capitalism by definition. NY Times is the mouthpiece of american liberalism.

          • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            Liberals love capitalism. They love dropping bombs with rainbow and BLM flags on them. They’re fine with imperialism so long as it’s the first black Indian woman president doing the bombing.

            The NYT is overwhelmingly liberal. They have some conservatives in their editorial staff but the majority are liberals. Most of the MSM is. But all the MSM protect their class interests.

            They protect their socioeconomic class at the expense of the working class. They are the servants of the billionaires. The republicans are no better, that goes without saying.

            Liberalism is a right wing ideology. You’ve almost got the point.

            • Doom@ttrpg.networkBanned
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              2 years ago

              You are extremely twisted up.

              Liberalism is not right wing, and what you’re talking about is neoliberalism. Which is different.

              • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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                2 years ago

                No. You’re completely wrong. Liberalism is a right wing ideology. Neoliberalism is even further right. The entire US political spectrum save for a tiny handful of elected officials (Bernie and the squad, most of whom are centrists at best) are right wing to fascist.

                • Doom@ttrpg.networkBanned
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                  2 years ago

                  Nope. You completely don’t understand classic liberalism and modern liberalism or neoliberalism

              • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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                2 years ago

                Overton window around here is so far right you think you’re the one correcting him… Fuck damn.

                Compared to monarchy/fascism, liberalism is farther towards the center but it does not often cross that line.

                • Doom@ttrpg.networkBanned
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                  2 years ago

                  Hahaha imagine being this arrogant and immediately shooting yourself in the foot.

                  No Liberalism is left leaning. It is a center ideology 100% but liberalism is left leaning. The concept of liberalism literally became in existence opposite of a monarchy right wing style, placing it to the left.

                  Now since then the term liberalism has been abused especially in the US but you live in a world that was ruled by kings and still is in many ways. But you think globally that means liberals are right leaning?? Outside of your mind.

  • atro_city@fedia.io
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    2 years ago

    Look at who the USAmerican people voted for despite all their hate for the health insurance industry: a bunch of crooks that make the industry profitable on the backs of their voters.

    People can’t help themselves but vote against their interests.

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      ~20% of eligible voters voted for this.

      More people didn’t vote than voted for either candidate.

      ~150M voted with a 2M difference ~90M didn’t vote

      I’ll bet the vote count that actually matters is more like <10% of the country.

      • Mac@mander.xyz
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        2 years ago

        just as neglecting to make a decision is still a decision, neglecting to vote is still a vote.

        • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          You’re ignoring the many people who have been disenfranchised, their registration purged from the rolls at the last second, votes thrown out, intentionally giving certain areas only one voting location for many many people. There’s tons of reasons why someone might not vote that are out of their control.

        • Anticorp@lemmy.worlddeleted by creator
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          2 years ago

          It’s a blatant statement that they don’t consider either candidate to be a legitimate choice.

        • atro_city@fedia.io
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          2 years ago

          Just like upgrading from eating scaps to eating fastfood, better doesn’t mean good.

    • Anticorp@lemmy.worlddeleted by creator
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      2 years ago

      Both candidates were pro-institution. Let go of the delusion that Harris was somehow a champion of the people. She is the system. The only reason she got the amount of votes she did is because she was the only viable non-trump vote possible. The DNC tried to force another neo-liberal on us, and the people stayed home.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      That describes both parties. There’s a reason none of the dems are taking advantage of this moment to show the overwhelming majority that they want the same things.

  • anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 years ago

    C’mon man, the hate was obviously there before the killing, it’s just that it took a murder to get the hacks at the NYT to cover it.

      • bizarroland@fedia.io
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        2 years ago

        Come on now. You can’t honestly expect a poor innocent billionaire who’s only goal in life was to line his pockets and the pockets of the people he was responsible for with every single penny they could possibly extort out of the poverty stricken and miserable people that rely on their services for life-saving medicine to actually be responsible for the people that died relying on them for their services right?

        That would imply that there’s some sort of moral obligation for service providers to provide the services that they agreed to provide to the people that are paying them for said services, or that when a company whose entire point of existence is providing healthcare services to the people that need them does not provide those services when they are needed that the company is responsible for the misery and pain and deaths that result as a lack of providing those services and that the CEO who is the leader of that company has all of those hundreds of thousands of gallons of blood on his hands.

        That would also imply that people getting fed up and retaliating against these billionaires are actually justifiable heroes rather than depraved bloodthirsty savages only seeking to destroy the American way of life.

        That’s crazy talk!

        • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Come on now! If you read the article (/s), you’d know that he was one of the good guys who wanted to change the system.

        • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          And the only reason we even have the ACA is because the Dems had a filibuster proof majority for a handful of weeks, over a decade ago.

          • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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            2 years ago

            Single payer is a term generally used to describe government-paid, or socialized medicine. The government is the “payer” of the healthcare. In the absence of private-insurance companies, they would be the single payer. At least that’s how I think of the term.

      • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        NYT CEO? Well they did cheerlead the Iraq war, reported lies that led to the war without question like a fucking press release and slandered anyone who dare speak against it. How many Iraqis died? 200k?

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      That’s not true.

      I hated the insurance companies yesterday, but I wasn’t posting about actually killing anyone.

      People have been talking about guillotines in the abstract. Now they are talking about it in concrete terms.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 years ago

          Read up on what happened in France after the guillotines… Maybe not the best idea to repeat that error.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Here’s the thing. The French and Russian governments were unprepared for massive civil unrest.

          Here in America we have companies like Blackwater [or whatever they are calling themselves this week] Staffed by ex-CIA hotshots with access to a massive data base and lots and lots of money.

          I’d bet anything that they are already planning to capitalize onthis attack.

          • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            Some of us have nothing left to lose. Fuck the private military contractors. Guns and drones are the great equalizer. They’ve waged war on us for decades it’s about time we fight back.

          • kmaismith@lemm.ee
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            2 years ago

            This whole story-arc gives first move advantage to the opposition, the oligarchs are being forced to react instead of execute plans as they wish

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              2 years ago

              No.

              This is a blip on the radar. Gamestop didn’t destroy the stock markets and this isn’t going to do anything but get people riled up.

              9/11/2001 gave us the Patriot Act. You can bet that Trump will push through a law letting any CEOs body guards shoot at will.

          • Anticorp@lemmy.worlddeleted by creator
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            2 years ago

            I’d bet anything that they are already planning to capitalize on this attack.

            My guess is they’re currently consulting their legal teams and politicians, trying to figure out how to get the public to pay for their own private Secret Service for corporate executives.

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              2 years ago

              I have another comment in this thread. I said that 9/11 gave us the Patriot Act and that this attack will probably lead to something worse.

              • Anticorp@lemmy.worlddeleted by creator
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                2 years ago

                Right. The legal teams employed by these bastards are the ones who write our laws, our legislators just sign them.

                • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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                  2 years ago

                  Which is why people need to vote in every election.

                  AOC and Omar didn’t magically appear. They did old fashioned political work.

      • granolabar@kbin.melroy.org
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        2 years ago

        No way to tell why the working class would feel this way.

        Just no way to know what compells normal citizens to thrist for blood.

          • bizarroland@fedia.io
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            2 years ago

            One thing I’ve learned is that abusers don’t see themselves as abusers.

            They’re “Doing what is necessary”, the abuse “hurts them more than it hurts you”.

            They can’t hear your cries, your pleas fall on hearts of stone.

            And most of all they absolutely cannot understand why you are still upset about it.

            There was a time when I had a pickaxe in my hands and my abusive stepdad turned his back to me. For a moment I knew I could murder him, I could bury that pickaxe in his skull and he couldn’t stop me.

            I felt at that moment that nothing that would happen to me as a consequence of doing that would be worse than the abuse I was going through at that time.

            I don’t know what stopped me. I had to live with the abuse for another full year after that moment.

            To this day, my mom has no idea how close I came to becoming a murderer.

            If you knew me, the idea of me wanting to pop a man’s head like a rotten coconut would seem cartoonish and comical.

            But I was close.

            If I knew I was dying and I met the man responsible for it, I could cross that line.

            I’ve been close before.

      • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Ex US attorney Preet Bharara says that an important boundary is when a fantasy “graduates”, going from protected free speech to credible threat.

        • granolabar@kbin.melroy.org
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          2 years ago

          It seem socials are very clear on this line… it aint a crime to cheer.

          Also, this has been so effective that media is unable to provide a coherent rebuttal within the oligarch framework. This guy was not an owner but he was a topish officer within their system responsible for a division within a strategic sector. They need this guy to be a martyr but public rejected that narrative and just meme the death with some heavy social commentary on the current conditions within health industry and broader economy.

            • granolabar@kbin.melroy.org
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              2 years ago

              Well, a lot of mods just journalist in the news sub. So this is classic, check who you can’t criticize test.

              They won’t permit you to provide any counter narrative.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Which is very elastic.

          Think of it this way; no one is threatened by the sight of Al Yankovic coming down the street in a tank. People run for cover when Joe Pesci walks into a store and asks how much for a chainsaw.

        • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Thought crimes don’t exist. One has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the thought crimer is taking actions to carry out real crimes.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    I live in SORROW at this Father and Husband being MURDERED! WHY couldn’t they just Murder a Bunch of Children Instead! Or a POOR Father and Husband instead! Then I WOULDNT have cared!

  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    A national response of apathy over the cold-blooded murder of a corporate medical business leader may be a reason to take a closer look at our corporate medical system.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    But that did not stop social media commenters from leaping to conclusions and from showing a blatant lack of sympathy over the death of a man who was a husband and father of two children.

    Don’t be clueless, NYT. Similar to the blatant lack of sympathy shown by corporate execs over the damages their policies cause in the pursuit of infinite increases to the bottom line? I mean, after a few tens of thousands of collective years of life lost I guess human suffering is just a statistic… The C-suite is well paid enough to not waste too much concern over it. In fact, they probably get paid more for less money spent on those liabilities. All those people denied care were wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons…you get the idea. His life is NOT worth more than those he traded for shareholder approval.

    • Disaster@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      I more or less stopped paying attention to NYT in 2002-2003 when they so gleefully cheerlead the Iraq2 campaign. And I feel dumb it took me that long. They don’t exist to do anything except manufacture consent.

      • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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        2 years ago

        I will never forgive their complicity in the Iraq war and I treat anyone who reads the NYT without simultaneously harboring a constant distaste for it as fundamentally unserious in their practice of educating themselves about reality.

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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        2 years ago

        Well to be fair, the advertisers have always been the real customers. Most media loses money in distribution.