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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Totally agree. Murdering an insurance CEO isn’t the answer tho. Which was my original point.
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.
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.
Don’t they also go to great lengths to conceal information on their practices? And for most people what health insurance is available depends on their employer? There are a lot of obstacles to the public being sufficiently informed and able to exercise agency to solve this from a consumer level. Not to say you’re wrong about murder not being a good solution to this though.
Every time I have gotten denied, I get a letter. They list what gets paid for and what doesn’t.
No, you don’t HAVE to take the health insurance that your employer offers. You can deny it. In most instances tho, it’s worth it to keep it. Which is why the “revolution” that Lemmy thinks is going to happen, won’t.
The only real revolutionary change on that will come by voting for politicians who don’t worship the insurance companies money. And guess what? BOTH the Democrats and the Republicans worship insurance company money.
Which is why we need a third party. When I mentioned that and supported third parties before the election, the .world instance permabanned me! LMAO
Which is also part of the problem. People are too afraid to actually be uncomfortable for a bit in order to bring change.
But that doesn’t mean people should fucking murder CEO’s. WTF?!
Indeed. It’s a very privileged idea that “If you don’t like someone’s services, you’re free to shop around until you find something you’re comfortable with.”
This only applies to the rich. Everyone else is fucked over by monopolies.
You think I like having Spectrum Internet? There’s no other game in town that provides internet to this street. You think I like having health insurance that completely ignores my teeth? It’s all I can afford.
Then have the balls to not have internet. How far are you willing to go to stand up for yourself?
But fucking murder is too far. Do you think someone should fucking murder the Spectrum CEO? Lots of Lemmy do think that. And it’s fucking disgusting.
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.
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.
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.
Go back to reddit then, pussy, class traitors aren’t welcome here.
You’re right, continued passivity will fix everything!
Exactly, Luigi should be freed!
Soooooooo Brian Thompson except he just didn’t have the exact title you demand for violence? Because uh… That fits him perfectly, so maybe get your tongue out of the shitstain’s dead and rotting asshole, yeah?
Bet the FBI will be super interested in your post and Lemmy now.
Please stop interacting with children you are awful
Because I don’t advocate murder?! Say what?!