Thoughts on the Assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson (1 Viewer)

[coldseat]

I haven't been watching much news since the election, but this assassination attempt on the CEO of United Healthcare caught my attention. What are you thoughts on it?

This was clearly a targeted murder. The murderer even wrote messages on the bullet casings. The difference in responses to this between the media/political class and the general public commenting on the story is night and day. There is almost no sympathy or shock from the general public responding to this story, more of a "not surprised, what do you expect" response. There seems to be more sympathy or justification for the murderer and the situation people assume he's in because of his actions. My own initial reaction was also along the lines of not being surprised. Just take a second to read through comments on any youtube or news story about this. I honestly can't remember such a strident reaction from the general public to a story about an assassination of somebody that wasn't a well known antagonist (i.e. like Donald Trump, another billionaire) in recent memory.

Clearly not everybody is blaming minorities and illegal immigrants for their problems. Do you think we will be seeing more of this type of violence against the elite CEO and billionaire class going forward? Should they take this as a warning?

I see this as a bad omen for our society, but as I already said, not a surprising one. United Healthcare has the highest rejection rate for insurance claims among all insurers and a lot of the policies that this guy implemented are the reason why. People are raging at the imbalance in our society and tried of being squeezed at every corner and they have easy access to weapons. Given that Republicans will do nothing to address these inequities, I only see the violence escalating from here.

 

[Texan1211]

Words, words, words.

That you use standard English is obvious. That your writing is incomprehensible is because your standard English words are cobbled together in a manner resulting in nonsense.

But then that is to be expected from you.

The next bus to Freeperville should be along shortly.

Here's hoping you're on it!

 

[SystemShock]

I understand why the shooting. While the shooting has brought health insurance companies and coverage denials to the forefront (as if they ever were really in the background) I don't think the other aspect of it is being discussed, the way hospitals are pushing healthcare costs up, many times in unethical ways, from the doctor who knocks on your hospital bedroom door, asks you how are you doing, and bills $200/hr for a consultation; to a q-tip in your ear being classified as surgery and charged accordingly.

You have to remember, hospitals and health insurance companies don't really work together, they are constantly trying to squeeze each other, one's trying to get the money, the other is trying not to give it. Of course, the loser here is the consumer.

 

[J-DONK]

I understand why the shooting. While the shooting has brought health insurance companies and coverage denials to the forefront (as if they ever were really in the background) I don't think the other aspect of it is being discussed, the way hospitals are pushing healthcare costs up, many times in unethical ways, from the doctor who knocks on your hospital bedroom door, asks you how are you doing, and bills $200/hr for a consultation; to a q-tip in your ear being classified as surgery and charged accordingly.

You have to remember, hospitals and health insurance companies don't really work together, they are constantly trying to squeeze each other, one's trying to get the money, the other is trying not to give it. Of course, the loser here is the consumer.

The core issue is inelastic demand, and a non-competitive market.

We should all be able to look up doctors/hospitals by cost, and performance. Pick, and choose the ones we prefer, and ban the ones we don't.

We also do have M4A, via emergency room visits. That's what is so dumb. The thing we deny is the cost saving part of primary care physicans.