“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”
Or, as I am fond of saying, if you find yourself going in circles, it might be time to cut down on the revolutions.
Agreed, this would be helpful. “UHC” has always meant Universal Health Care to me, as it has for others who have weighed in.
Democrats are really wasting an opportunity by not pushing full throat for UHC and every healthcare reform at this very moment. Granted it means nothing when Trump will soon be in the Oval Office but they ought to anyway.
I don’t understand.
You must know it wouldn’t work. It’s absolutely terrible advice.
First of all, many Democrats think that universal healthcare is socialist, and socialism is bad. Second, what good would it do? There is not a thing that can be done about it for at least four years, and by then this incident will be long forgotten (unless the murderer is still awaiting trial then). In which case… the calls to action can wait until action is actually possible.
Plus, democrats would be accused of trying to provoke political violence. And for once, the fascists levying such accusations (and remember, whenever a racist makes an accusation, it’s really a confession) might actually be right. In a broken clock is right twice day sense.
Ah, yes. I remember how Trump and the Republicans shut up after the 2020 election and didn’t say a word or propose anything, since they were out of power and it wouldn’t have done them any good.
(Clutches earpiece) Wait, what’s that? I’m being told that they did the exact opposite of that and now hold a governmental trifecta.
So what if they are? Seems like the lesson of the last few years is that political violence works and “upholding norms” doesn’t.
Seems like this election also taught us when Democrats get so terrified of name-calling that they spend all their time trying to convince centrists that they’re just like the Republicans in 2005.
Or, maybe, since this is a thread about the murder of a United Healthcare (UHC) CEO, and there are other threads to discuss health coverage in general, UHC should be presumed to refer to the subject of the thread, the murder of a UHC CEO, presumptively as an act of political violence that some (I think disgustingly) cheer, and others can use “single payer” or write the words out or take it to the thread that is created to discuss that subject?
I see too many people celebrating this terrible murder out there, FB, etc. Maybe here too.
To me, “terrible” is when a man allows a computer to decide that the medical care you need to stay alive isn’t conducive to maximizing shareholder value.
This doesn’t even scrape the surface of terribleness.
As someone on Reddit put it (paraphrased):
“The gunman would never kill someone like me because I’m just an ordinary citizen. An insurance CEO like Brian Thompson, on the other hand, would not hesitate to kill me if it benefited his company’s bottom line.”
Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won’t never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.
Woody Guthrie ~ Pretty Boy Floyd
We were through this with Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, too.
Which should really tell you something about the state of the Union right now. We are not in a good place.
I’m going to have to point to Der_Trihs who rightfully noted in the sixth post of this thread.
A lot of people I’ve talked to are in the same boat I am. They all know it’s wrong it murder someone, they don’t condone the murder, but at the same time they understand why someone might have done it and feel little or no pity for Brian Thompson. The funny thing is that we really don’t know the killer’s motive, no yet, but we’ve built a narrative of righteous fury and justice. We might very well find Thompson was murdered because he planned on testifying or something. But people are so fed up with health insurance companies that they’re happy or at least indifferent to one of their CEOs being murdered.
Oh, I don’t disagree that he’s a murderer. He deserves to be arrested, tried, and acquitted by a jury of twelve people whose loved ones are dead because of Brian Thompson and the company he ran.
To paraphrase a discussion on Discord:
“Now Assad is gone, that’s two bad guys in a week.”
“I don’t know, I don’t think Assad killed as many people.”
While that helps illustrate how hostile people are towards the industry, it also makes a useful point: people like this CEO kill huge numbers of people for profit, on par with dictators who rightly get condemned as monsters. They just usually get a pass because they do it for profit, which is somehow a justification. It’s understandable that people are tired of being told to just sit and take it.
Ok, how about this? It’s a non sequitur:
- The CEO of an insurance company was murdered.
- ?
- Therefore, universal healthcare!
Of all the reasons to push for universal healthcare, this isn’t one of them. If the number of people his industry have killed haven’t been enough, why should this one CEO’s death make any better of an argument?
The notion that this event should prompt a push for U… universal health care that won’t be met with ‘I’m pro murder not pro socialism!’ amuses me no end.
The murder of the CEO isn’t the why. The conversation that’s being had about how exploitative and evil the insurance industry is is the why. Right now left and right are in agreement that the insurance industry is in the wrong, so this is the time to make it clear where Democrats stand on what to do about it.
Of course, that would require Democrats to actively express an opinion instead of letting Republicans set the terms of the debate and then respond in the meekest most focus-tested manner possible for fear of upsetting some fringe demographic or turning off Reagan Democrats who died 30 years ago.
There’s norms to be upheld, you know.
It does occur to me that trying to find a jury of people who haven’t been negatively affected by the sociopathy of the American medical insurance system will be like trying to find bacon at a bar mitzvah.