No Sympathy For The Devil
The public murder of a healthcare CEO has shone a spotlight on the revolutionary class division rising in 2024 America.
Yesterday at 6:45 a.m., UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside a Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan as he departed for a shareholder meeting to celebrate the insurance company’s growing profits. The incident was caught on camera and launched an immediate nationwide onslaught of 24-hour news coverage typically reserved for presidential assassination attempts or billionaire submarine excursions.
It will likely continue for several days, or at least until the perpetrator is apprehended. Type his name into any search engine or social media app to see firsthand evidence of this media mania, or check Google’s Trends page that tracks traffic. This was what the page auto-loaded 14 hours after the killing:
More than 24 hours after the shooting, the Trends page still auto-loaded a related search about words written on the three bullet casings found at the scene.
Virtually none of the initial media reports mentioned Brian Thompson was being sued by the Hollywood Firefighters’ Pension Fund after selling his personal UnitedHealthcare stock prior to public notice of a DOJ investigation into the company in February 2024 that immediately tanked the stock, erasing $25 billion in valuation; he protected his own investments with insider information after the company was notified of the investigation in October 2023.
As politicians and business leaders rushed to social media to express their condolences and reporters pored over Thompson’s history and reports of death threats he had received, the online conversation among the American public took a decidedly different tone: a near universal condemnation of UnitedHealthcare, the U.S. healthcare system, insurers in general, and Brian Thompson himself as a criminal and purveyor of mass suffering and death for profit. He served as CEO since April 2021.
Elites Deflect and Hide
While the wealthy and privileged clutched their pearls and clamored to strengthen their personal security, UnitedHealthcare stealthily removed a web page from their site called “Our Leadership” that featured photos and bios of its executive team. The search result still appears on Google, and for a while after the killing it loaded a “Page Not Found” message, but a day later it now simply redirects to the company’s homepage.
It seems that in an instant, the security and safety of the ultra rich and powerful was revealed to be a mirage, a facade projected by the media and law enforcement designed to convince the many that there is no way to touch the few. It is almost certain that high-profile corporate executives, particularly those in industries and companies that directly harm human beings, will begin spending more money to hire personal security for public appearances. This may extend to executives in the insurance, fossil fuel, chemical and pharmaceutical industries that are widely reviled by the public and specifically hated by individuals directly impacted by their misdeeds, from the Sacklers to the Kochs. The wave of fear could even reach political leaders, many of whom receive frequent death threats and are commonly perceived as responsible for direct harm to civilians.
Among the first reactionaries was Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, where UnitedHealthcare is headquartered, who said:
Senator Klobuchar has received at least $182,870 from UnitedHealthcare throughout her political career, according to Open Secrets. It is unclear why she chose to mention “all those working at UnitedHealthcare in Minnesota”, since the incident occurred in New York and was clearly a targeted attack against the CEO. The larger and more pertinent question, though, is how Klobuchar and her ilk can keep a straight face when responding this way while they refuse to acknowledge that the U.S. healthcare system, and specifically insurance providers, conduct constant violence against their customers and the American public, for profit.
Klobuchar’s loyalties are made fairly clear by her lax reaction to the healthcare giant’s continued consolidation of the industry while serving as the top Democrat on a Senate panel specifically focused on antitrust concerns. The panel has questioned multiple competitor health insurers about mergers, but has never summoned United Health to testify as it has gobbled up smaller companies and increased its vertical integration to control more of the health insurance process and data.
Check out the Senator’s Twitter (X) or Threads accounts to see the responses to her post, which carry an almost unanimous sentiment of scorn, derision and sarcasm using the language of the health insurance industry:
Every similar post from a titan of industry or American politician has received the same response of universal dissent and disapproval of the hand-wringing by the elite classes. For reference, the average day in America sees more than 132 people killed by guns. That’s 132 people shot to death every single day without end, mostly without any widespread media coverage or statements from elected officials. But when the victim is a rich, powerful industry executive, thought and prayers and condemnations pour out of our elected leaders even faster then the cash that flows into their pockets from the industry.
Deny, Defend, Depose
Under Brian Thompson’s leadership, profits at UnitedHealthcare rose from $12 billion in 2021 to $16 billion in 2023, a 33% jump in just two years. That would be an amazing, almost unbelievable result for any established company in any industry, but in healthcare it is dumbfounding. Did the company start offering more popular services? Did it greatly increase its customer base? Did it eliminate unnecessary expenses?
Or did it simply push more lucrative Medicare Advantage plans that target senior Americans with supplemental coverage to Medicare that has long been regarded as a scam for denying claims, charging the government huge sums for unnecessary procedures and failing to provide the promised benefits? The Department of Health and Human Services itself found in 2024 that Medicare Advantage providers overbill taxpayers by billions of dollars every year. In August of this year, it was revealed that Congress nearly dealt with this in 2014, but, as nearly always happens, ended up caving to demands from the industry to allow the continued theft of billions of dollars to boost profits, stock prices and subsequent campaign contributions to those same members of Congress.
This is how legal bribery works in Congress across all industries. When Congress identifies illegality or an issue it can fix through legislation, that industry’s lobbyists descend on Washington to warn the elected officials that they will harm jobs, hurt the economy, and won’t receive future funding for their next election campaign. For Representatives, this is an especially effective message/threat, because they are up for re-election every two years and thus must constantly be wary of any organization that could spend millions to support a competitor for their seat.
It’s the same argument Joe Biden and Lindsay Graham make when supporting war, the same argument Joe Manchin and all Republicans make when demanding increased fossil fuel use, and the same argument automakers and baby formula producers make when anyone tries to regulate them to improve safety or reduce harms to the environment and population - you’ll lose us money, and we’ll attack you electorally. And here we get to the crux of the issue.
Profits Over People, Always
United Healthcare has the highest rate of claims denials of any U.S. health insurance company, by far. This chart has made the rounds and will be seared into the public consciousness for a long time to come. It shows how UnitedHealthcare’s denial rate is double the industry average.
In addition to this year’s HHS findings of Medicare Advantage plan providers overcharging the government for unnecessary services, a Senate investigation also announced in October that UnitedHealthcare, CVS and Humana are using artificial intelligence tools to more rapidly make decisions on claims, and the result has been faster denials and increased rates of denials.
The report is extremely damning, noting that UnitedHealthcare’s post-acute care denials, which refers to claims and needs following surgeries or major illness, had already more than doubled from 10.9% to 22.7% between 2020 and 2022. This resulted from UnitedHealthcare’s purchase of naviHealth, a company that handles prior authorization processes between doctors and insurers. To quote the article linked above:
In April 2022, naviHealth told customer service representatives to not help providers with prior authorization questions.
“IMPORTANT: Do NOT guide providers or give providers answers to the questions,” naviHealth mandated.
The use of artificial intelligence for purposes of expediting decisions has expanded at breakneck speed across industries, but its growth in healthcare is among the most directly impactful on people’s lives. These efforts to consolidate and automate processes are occurring in every applicable industry as rapidly as possible, from advertising, insurance and coding to surveillance, logistics and warehouse management.
This is where the reader gets a couple reminders. First, the United States is the only country on Earth that operates its healthcare system primarily for private profit, with the exception of Medicare and Medicaid, which are government-funded and not the same as private Medicare Advantage plans. Second, the United States is one of the only countries where healthcare commonly pushes citizens into bankruptcy, with up to 600,000 medical bankruptcies reported every year, potentially accounting for up to 62% of all bankruptcies.
And that’s not all. A 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation report found that the life-altering effects of medical costs and debts in America go well beyond bankruptcy, summarized in the chart below.
Data also indicates that millions of people pay for medical care with high-interest credit cards, which furthers the debt load and the corporate profits from healthcare services. A Zillow report from 2019 is equally enlightening, showing that medical debt is a major factor in denials for mortgages, summarized thusly:
Zillow’s survey found that 38% of buyers who owe money for health-care expenses said they’d been turned down for a mortgage because of medical debt. That was a significantly higher rejection rate than for buyers with student loans, at 28%, or credit card debt, 22%.
The Haves Have it
When we see the struggles of the citizenry contrasted against the concerns of the rich, powerful and political elites, it is dishonest to feign shock or surprise that a healthcare CEO could be shot point blank in public. Reactions like Senator Klobuchar’s obstruct and deflect the conversation to be one about “crime”, because the leaders determine what constitutes a crime.
When you end someone’s life with a bullet, it is a heinous act of violence. If you, however, end someone’s life by denying them medical care they are rightfully entitled to receive, that’s a positive for shareholders. If you gouge them so heavily they must take out loans, that’s just business. In fact, that’s just good business. That deserves a bonus.
That’s how Brian Thompson earned more than $10 million in total compensation in 2023. He oversaw a massive expansion of intentional denials that vastly exceeds every other competitors denial rates, and he was rewarded handsomely for it by the company and its shareholders, who are also all rewarded handsomely.
This is the core evil of creating a for-profit healthcare system: those in power have direct yet obscured control over the very survival of hundreds of millions of citizens with virtually no power to control their own care or fight back against the corporate machine determining whether they live, die or go homeless. If we should be surprised by anything, it should be how long its taken for individuals to fight back against the corruption and criminality that pervade so many of our systems and industries, perhaps most of all in healthcare.
Every large healthcare corporation spends significant sums to lobby against universal healthcare, lower prescription drug costs, increased coverage mandates and any other policies that might take a penny out of the bottom line. These lobbyists and corporate executives present themselves as fighters for life, the delivery vehicle for health, but in the end, they are nothing more than purveyors of mass death and constant suffering sneering down at us from their protected perches.
Now, as we enter what may be the most tumultuous period in America since the Civil War, it seems they’re going to need more protection. From all of us.
Note: The number of Americans killed by guns originally cited 125 per day, but has been updated based on CDC information. In 2022 there were 48,204 firearm deaths, for an average of 132 per day.
You're describing millions of gullible people who believe far-right conspiracies spread by grifters who are already filthy rich. There is absolutely no evidence of any malpractice or malfeasance in the development or administration of any covid vaccine. All medications have side effects, and nobody was forced to do anything in America.
This is the best writing I’ve seen on this story yet. It seems the ruling class just told a whole bunch of the rest of us just what it takes to get their full and undivided attention.