# United healthcare CEO assassinated, the P&E edition {This is not a gun debate/statistics thread!} **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 5, 2024, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195 "2024-12-05T13:02:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/101 "2024-12-05T22:14:19Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Umm, why are we basing what’s fair for the insurance company on a single insuree? Shouldn’t we be looking at what they have to pay out vs what they take in across all of their insurees? I’m all for that but we are looking at a single insuree because presumably that is what motivated the killer (and the muted reaction too). ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/102 "2024-12-05T22:21:46Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I didn’t agree with the point of the story, which was “Violence sometimes works” but it was very thought provoking. It’s odd to see Doctorow agreeing with Heinlein, but here we are. “Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” (Although RAH was clearly more enthusiastic about it.) ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/103 "2024-12-05T22:24:04Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I didn’t agree with the point of the story, which was “Violence sometimes works” but it was very thought provoking. I am, however, very interested in seeing how the real life story plays out, I mean, it may have played out (at a very localized level) quicker than I would have guessed. [Insurance company halts plan to put time limits on coverage for anesthesia during surgery | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/health/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-claim-limits/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/104 "2024-12-05T22:56:12Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > The idea that violence never works is one of those great lies we like to tell children. It might not work all the time but to say it never works is wrong. Sometimes violence is the only practical solution. FWIW my own take expressed here is that it is usually is ineffective at producing desired change. It certainly gets used a bunch and one way or another, often to no one’s desired outcome, conflicts are settled as a result. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/105 "2024-12-05T22:56:25Z")
These kind of cynical corporate reflexive parries seldom have any real staying power. Watch when the wind shifts next. > [@DSeid](#): > > FWIW my own take expressed here is that it is usually is ineffective at producing desired change. It may be a bit like the old stance on quitting a substance: change only comes, if ever, when there’s a strong desire _to_ change. As Bill Maher once remarked, 9/11 changed … nothing. There’s a huge flywheel effect in the US, and it’s pretty much fueled by unbridled greed. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/106 "2024-12-05T23:00:40Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > FWIW my own take expressed here is that it is usually is ineffective at producing desired change. Really depends on what your desired change is. If your desired change is, “I really want that guy to not be breathing any more,” violence is _great_ at getting the result you want. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/107 "2024-12-05T23:13:46Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Sometimes violence is the only practical solution. As portrayed on _The Andy Griffith Show_, _A Christmas Story_, and others; and in real life: WWII. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/108 "2024-12-05T23:24:08Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Costing corporations money is a more effective correction on their behavior than any amount of bloodshed. [Well this bloodshed already led to course corrections](https://www.axios.com/2024/12/05/blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-anthem-connecticut-new-york). ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/109 "2024-12-05T23:25:04Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > > Okay, dude. > > If you believe that, then entire health insurance industry cannot exist because denying a claim is immoral. Simply absurd. Denying a claim for any medically necessary procedure is immoral, period. Basic health care is a fundamental human right. What is absurd is that American culture tolerates having access to this fundamental human right controlled by free-market enterprises. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/110 "2024-12-05T23:29:56Z")
from the other thread > [@UnitedHealthcare CEO fatally shot in Manhattan \[2024-12-04\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unitedhealthcare-ceo-fatally-shot-in-manhattan-2024-12-04/1011159/251): > > while I think there is zero chance that Trump is connected to it, there is a world leader who is interested in exacerbating divisions in the United States From what we have observed so far, it does not seem to me as though this act is exacerbating divisions in the US. The number of people who fly their standard for insurance companies is very, very small. From what I can tell, a great many people are “_I do not approve of this action, but …_” If you want to divide Americans, this is a very ineffective way to do that. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/111 "2024-12-05T23:45:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Denying a claim for any medically necessary procedure is immoral, period. Basic health care is a fundamental human right. What is absurd is that American culture tolerates having access to this fundamental human right controlled by free-market enterprises. Every time I hear the phrase “fundamental human rights” applied to healthcare the image of Joe Biden fist bumping MBS pops into my mind. I get it, cheap gas is also a fundamental human right. I would like to continue the discussion about healthcare but maybe in another thread. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/112 "2024-12-05T23:49:18Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > I get it, cheap gas is also a fundamental human right. No it isn’t, so clearly you don’t get it at all. Every civilized country on the planet provides unconditional universal health care. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/113 "2024-12-05T23:51:44Z")
Maybe it’s been addressed here, but does anyone know the CEO’s credentials? Was he an MBA, MHA, MD, JD? Or none of the above? ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/114 "2024-12-05T23:52:02Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > I would like to continue the discussion about healthcare but maybe in another thread. > [@wolfpup](#): > > No it isn’t, so clearly you don’t get it at all. Every civilized country on the planet provides unconditional universal health care. Perhaps @puzzlegal’s concurrent thread? > [@The ethics of health insurance](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-health-insurance/1011177): > > Continuing the discussion from [UnitedHealthcare CEO fatally shot in Manhattan [2024-12-04]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unitedhealthcare-ceo-fatally-shot-in-manhattan-2024-12-04/1011159/113): So … United healthcare has a very bad reputation, and perhaps that’s true of it. But as best as i can tell, the people who invented the HMO (which i think was related to [Kaiser Permanente](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente), the health insurance company) really believed they were going to improve people’s health and save money doing it, by preventing expensive complications. And i kinda think the folks who founded [the Blues](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Cross_Blue_Shield_Association) (the large… ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/115 "2024-12-05T23:56:14Z")
This article might help put things in perspective. **Excerpt:** _Those cheering Thompson’s death are arguing that taking away sick Americans’ pills or denying them needed surgeries is immoral and should be punished by death._ _The logic is indefensible, but people do have a reason to be angry: Roughly half of Americans report difficulty paying for their health-care costs. A single denied insurance claim can force a patient into financial ruin, and health insurers have gotten more clever at finding ways to deny claims. Until Congress intervened in 2020, patients were frequently being saddled with unexpected medical bills for hospital visits all because the specific doctor on rotation, unbeknownst to them, was out of their insurance network. And even less egregious maneuvers, such as step therapy, which requires patients to try cheaper medications before insurers will pay for more expensive therapies, can delay treatment needed to stave off suffering._ _UnitedHealthcare is particularly infamous for its aggressive use of these tactics. Reporters at the health publication Stat(where I worked until September) spent the past year documenting the myriad ways UnitedHealthcare has extracted profits at the cost of patients’ lives. They [found](https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/13/medicare-advantage-plans-denial-artificial-intelligence/), for example, that the company has used AI algorithms to justify kicking elderly patients out of nursing homes, despite evidence that some of those patients still needed round-the-clock care. Doctors who worked for United (which has also been [buying](https://www.statnews.com/2023/11/29/unitedhealth-doctors-workforce/)doctors’ offices) [told Stat](https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/25/united-health-group-medicare-advantage-strategy-doctor-clinic-acquisitions/) that the company applied pressure to see more patients and [diagnose them](https://www.statnews.com/2024/10/16/united-health-optum-care-medicare-advantage-strategy-dashboard-emails-documents/) with additional conditions, presumably to increase the company’s profits. United has also faced lawsuits from patients and from the federal government regarding its aggressive business tactics. (United has refuted the claim that it relied solely on AI to deny care, and has said in response to Stat’s reporting that it trusts its doctors to “make independent clinical decisions.”)_ _But the issue is the health-insurance system, not the CEOs. As long as the majority of health insurance in America is run as a private enterprise, it will work according to this logic. UnitedHealthcare’s aggressiveness is exactly the reason its parent company is now the largest health insurer in America. It has undeniably been successful in its primary business goal to deliver profits for its shareholders._ Limited gift link: > **[Health-Care Fury Is Justified](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/12/thompson-murder-unitedhealthcare-fury/680897/?gift=FNE9XeXXKzu6Z_8urufLLqfF_fLsNjcjWca5-W9JhgE&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share)** > > Murder is not. Original article: > **[Health-Care Fury Is Justified](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/12/thompson-murder-unitedhealthcare-fury/680897/)** > > Murder is not. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/116 "2024-12-06T00:06:56Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Maybe it’s been addressed here, but does anyone know the CEO’s credentials? Was he an MBA, MHA, MD, JD? Or none of the above? None of the above, it appears. His Wikipedia entry, and at least one news article I could find, indicate that had a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Iowa. I don’t see any mention of a postgraduate degree. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/117 "2024-12-06T01:54:35Z")
According to the info the NYT put out about Thompson, he was basically a bean counter. He had a bachelor’s in business administration (accounting major) from the University of Iowa and prior to joining United in 2004, he worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/118 "2024-12-06T02:07:04Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > In socialized systems, with much lower national healthcare budgets than in the U.S., they have to do it more. Got a cite for that? Because it doesn’t match my understanding of how it works in the UHC system I’m familiar with, in Canada. There are no death panels that overrule doctors’ professional judgment. Those are an element of for-profit insurance, not socialised medicare. The doctor sees the patient, provides treatment, and sends in a bill to the single-payer, which pays it. If there are suspicions that a doctor is over-billing, that doesn’t affect the treatment provided to the patient. The single-payer authority may sue the doctor for refunds, if they can show that the doctor over-billed. In extreme cases, the doctor may be charged with fraud. But the single-payer doesn’t supervise the doctor’s treatment of a particular patient. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/119 "2024-12-06T02:30:11Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > > > In socialized systems, with much lower national healthcare budgets than in the U.S., they have to do it more. > > Got a cite for that? The mechanisms health care leaders use to limit care to what is affordable and wise of course varies. Canadian providers do not have time to do all the procedures done down here because Canada has a [licensed doctor shortage](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-turning-away-home-grown-doctors-1.6743486). The U.S. is unusual in that most doctors are specialists. Whole different dynamic. (Although I think Canada also has a family medicine shortage.) We also have more imaging machines per capita. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195/120 "2024-12-06T02:42:45Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > > [@Eonwe](#): > > > > … it’s pretty hard to define “overuse” and “unnecessary”, and the work to audit individual care plans to ferret this out on a case-by-case level would be incredibly expensive and inaccurate. > > And yet managers in every health system have to do it. In socialized systems, with much lower national healthcare budgets than in the U.S., they have to do it more. This is not just wrong, it’s exactly backwards. The assertion that in systems of universal health care (UHC) funding providers have to audit individual procedures more carefully than ever because their budgets are lower reflects a profound lack of understanding of how such systems really work. The reality is that health care costs are dramatically lower **precisely because** no such case-by-case scrutiny occurs. This is one of the most fundamental and important differences between private health insurance and UHC, particularly single-payer. Every health care system has to control costs. UHC systems control costs through overall policy and primarily through fee schedules. Commercial health insurers primarily control costs by micromanaging each individual case, which necessarily means that they are always meddling in the doctor-patient relationship. In UHC, the physician and their patient are the final arbiters of appropriate treatment protocols. With private insurance, the insurance company bureaucrats are the final arbiters, approving or denying treatment as they see fit, often for mercenary reasons and to the detriment of the patient, and potentially costing the patient their life or degrading their quality of life. The renowned health care economist Ewe Reinhardt made this point many times, and is quoted **[in this paper](https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Research/HealthCareFinancingReview/Downloads/CMS1191473dl.pdf)** [PDF] from which I provide this excerpt: > It is Reinhardt’s assertion that the absence in the United States of an overall program of budgetary control over medical expenditures, as is characteristic of the prominent European systems, results in unparalleled micro-management at the clinical level to achieve cost control unattainable on a larger scale. He writes that “…if the bureaucrats cannot somehow impose upon the healers an overall budget constraint _ex ante_, then they will sooner or later be driven to control their outlays on an ongoing basis, by monitoring each and every transaction for which they pay – that is, by second guessing both the providers’ clinical and pricing decisions” (Reinhardt, 1988). This appropriation of the clinical dimension of autonomy would be regarded as intolerable by physicians in other medical care systems. He suggests that “European and Canadian physicians would be appalled at the numerous intrusions into clinical decisions now routinely made by these external monitors in the United States. They probably would rise up in arms over that loss in clinical autonomy” (Reinhardt, 1988). > > It seems problematic that physicians in the United States would willingly and knowingly sacrifice the clinical element of autonomy that Freidson considered to be the more consequential element of his two-part definition of autonomy. Clinical autonomy, after all, constitutes the primacy of the physician in the health care division of labor and is the basis on which arguments for political and economic autonomy are formed. Reinhardt’s answer to this seeming paradox is that physicians in the United States have traded off clinical autonomy “in their tenacious fight to preserve the individual physician’s right to price his or her services as they see fit” (Reinhard~ 1988). This observation has been distilled into a formula referred to as Reinhardt’s “Law” or “Irony.” Reinhardt has summarized his law as follows: “In modern health care systems, the preservation of the healers’ economic freedom appears to come at the price of their clinical freedom” (Reinhardt, 1988). The application of Reinhardt’s Law to the late-20th-century United States scene would appear to indicate a priority on the part of physicians to pursue economic betterment at the expense of clinical autonomy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-ceo-assassinated-the-p-e-edition-this-is-not-a-gun-debate-statistics-thread/1011195.md?page=7)