Today I want to talk about the targeted attack on the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The story of his passing has been all over the news for the past 4 or 5 days, and what stood out about the case is the relative skill with which the perpetrator was able to evade apprehension by the authorities. The crime took place in broad daylight, and this is the kind of story that quickly rocks the nation.
A lot of people are interested in what will happen in the coming days. To add on to the lore, you have the evidence that was left behind of individual casings—each with specific messages inscribed. I read a CNN article suggesting that the words left on the casings may have been alluding to a popular oath in the health insurance industry: the systematic practice of delaying, denying, and defending themselves against final coverage decisions.
It’s a super interesting case because across social media they’ve almost painted the suspect out to be some sort of John Wick level vigilante—like a Robin Hood type. Not quite a villain, but more like a complex anti-hero passing righteous judgment.
As a narrative, it is an extremely attractive one, and it’s really hard to look away from a case like this. My takeaway is that there has been a very vocal outpouring of sentiments from the general public. Between the lack of concern for the deceased, the sarcasm, and the cajoling, it really is shocking.
I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that in recent years. Not to this degree. Could we actually be in the Age of Aquarius / Rapture / Find Out Season that everybody has been talking about lately? I’m astonished by what looks to me to be a collective shift in the American value system. And it’s something to look out for.
Even in the recent past, good, hardworking, salt-of-the-earth Americans might have attempted to shield their true opinions. And their judgments. And their criticisms. They would conceal them behind polite platitudes, saying things like, “Never speak ill of the deceased,” or “Sending condolences, thoughts, and prayers to the victim’s family.”
These are the socially-acceptable things to say.
But this time there seems to be a general consensus amongst the populace: a thirst for retribution. Dare I say there might actually be a little bit of fight left in the bellies of the American people. It’s so unlike what we’ve grown accustomed to as of late.
Contributing to this ongoing conversation about American healthcare woes, provider Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has also found itself in hot water for creating a policy decision that would reduce the amount of coverage for surgical anesthesia for patients in several states. The decision was recently reversed, and many people are making connections between these two stories, wondering if public outcry had something to do with the decision being overturned.
Ultimately, it all ties into a theory of corporate greed and how it’s become so insidious. Somehow the interplay of corporate greed and our value systems have become like oil and water. The two just do not mix. It’s not working anymore. It really is not working for the vast majority of Americans. So it’s something to watch out for. The shift in the winds.
All swirled up in this chaotic cyclone of a healthcare conversation, there is the potential of a preemptive pardon for Dr Science himself. The American president may, before his departure, choose to spare Anthony F of all criminal liability.
Not many people are paying attention to it these days, but the good doctor had gone before Congress to discuss his role in conducting harmful research in China—a topic that is still hotly debated among certain circles. Under his leadership and expertise, we formed an aggressive response to what we believed to be the greatest medical threat of our time, and it later was shown that the doctor used his influence to not only guide the trajectory of our decision-making, but also to deter attention from what has now become a very plausible explanation of its origin.
I won’t begin to reopen old wounds, although I do think that there is a part of a very important conversation that we need to be having here in America, and it’s a shame that many of us don’t seem to have the sustained ability or desire for focused attention on this matter.
In the wake of the past 5 years, due to the constant barrage of medical traumas imposed on the collective psyche, I guess it’s become like any other pain point. Some of us dealt with it by going on the offense, taking control to feel productive and useful, making swift, decisive action, and attempting to bend the external environment to our internal will for safety and protection.
Then some of us delved as deeply as we could into researching, gathering data, and collecting stories from near and far. All in an attempt to make sense of something that was always, essentially, just outside the bounds of our comprehension.
And far too many of us just got on with it. We just pushed it all down as far as possible. We compartmentalized. We shoved it away as if it wasn’t there. As if it didn’t exist. We just stuck our heads in the sand.
But, of course, it did exist. It was a huge part of our lives. It is still having a huge impact on our society—culturally, politically, interpersonally, and definitely economically. So it did happen, and it’s important to direct our attention towards truth.
As previously mentioned, there is a shift in the winds, as evidenced by the throngs of American citizens who openly are dreaming of the chance to buy the masked perpetrator a cup of coffee and pat him on the back for a job well done. I have never seen anything like it. People are openly admitting this.
The response shows that people are really clamoring for justice and accountability. And for a life where profits don’t stand in the way of our general health and wellness in this country. Who knows just what might be the result of this ever-growing sentiment.
On the very morning that his life was taken, Brian Thompson was headed to a board meeting that was set to take place about an hour after his passing. And the most damning detail about this case, in my opinion, is that the board meeting actually went off without a hitch. At its regularly scheduled time.
What an important detail for people to grasp. To really see the scope of how these corporations operate. We can’t unknow that. We can’t unsee that. And we can’t forget about that. The truth is that America still has a long way to go.
I recently wrote an article about how to obtain mental healthcare coverage without insurance. And I did so because it’s becoming more and more clear that Americans are itching for a new reality in our current healthcare model. Medical care is still the single greatest source of debt for American families. And as for the company at the center of this scandal, UnitedHealthcare’s coverage claim denial rate is a staggering 32%, twice the national average.
For the amount of money we pay into the marketplace, our coverage simply pales in comparison to that of other developed nations.
The hope is that we could do better as a society when it comes to protecting our citizens from predatory insurance practices. However—much like the patient claims at UnitedHealthcare—that wish has been denied.
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