Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot in Manhattan. The company was scheduled to have its annual meeting with investors Wednesday.
I figured this is the correct community to post to since UHC is a multi-national company but if this is more suited to US News I can move it.
This is tragic. Nobody should be gunned down in the street like this. I expect the NYPD, the media, and the politicians to spend exactly as much time and resources on this horrific crime as they do for every other individual that has been murdered in NYC this year. Not a fucking minute of police work more, not one fucking dollar of resources more, not one fucking article more, not one fucking minute of airtime more than any other person.
This is tragic. Nobody should be gunned down in the street like this.
I agree. Which is why we should address the problem by dealing with the absolutely ghoulish situation that is American health care, profiteering, and late-stage capitalism writ large. If there's one thing I am very happy about, it is the fact that the number one thing being talked about due to this – besides the shooting itself – is the problem that caused it and so many other deaths; not a preference for vigilante justice, not guns, not terrorists, but a desire for profit above all else, regardless of how many die from lack of care as a result.
To be clear, I suspect you agree, at least with the "ghoulish situation that is American health care" part. But what I want to highlight here is that I don't think almost anyone wants to live in a world where things like this happen, much less one where so many of us are happy about it. In the end, though, we don't get a choice. We live in that world, and it is far more important for us to worry about fixing that than it is for us to wring our hands when one of the 1% dies while the millions he's killed got nowhere near as much sympathy.
Murder is obviously bad. Even when it's justified, it is a tragedy, and indicative of a failure to find a better solution. But this is a failure of the system people like Brian Thompson helped to create. On some other sites, I see a lot of people saying things like what you've done here. They spend time focusing on how his death is tragic, prefacing anything else they wish to say with statements to that effect as though they were warding against a curse. Individually, I don't find this to be a problem. But when a lot of people are doing it? I think that's an insult to his victims.
Not a fucking minute of police work more, not one fucking dollar of resources more, not one fucking article more, not one fucking minute of airtime more than any other person.
Is this sarcasm? I'm going to assume this is sarcasm.
I'm dead serious. I oppose the misanthropic celebrations of someone's killing. At the same I resent the classism of treating this particular killing as more important just because it is a rich person.
Finally going after vermin instead of schoolchildren. Good. Slow progress is still progress. Hopefully, consequently, toppling the toxic system that produces these vermin in the first place.
I would normally be upset about something like this happening, and would never advocate for it. But then I think about how many lives this person is indirectly responsible for ruining and I feel less bad lol
At what point does indirectly become directly? I think what's most important here is intent - this man was clearly knowledgeable enough to know he was causing harm and still chose to do so in order to increase shareholder profit. There is malice here no matter how you slice it.
I can't imagine being a billionaire CEO in this country, just walking around on the street, not expecting to get a bullet in my head. Tired of hearing people say Americans aren't compassionate.