Would it be better if I said I was okay with other people being killed because it increased the value of my executive stock options?
You asked if I was OK with being shot on the street because of my political views. The flat answer is no I’m not OK with being shot on the street, for any reason. However, people like the CEO of United Healthcare have used their power and influence to create a society where people (or a person) are driven to this sort of violence by economic mistreatment and powerlessness to make their lives better. These people see the CEO as the face of this mistreatment, a person who profits on the misery of others.
I didn’t do that. I didn’t have a hand in creating this situation. I fully support making it harder for people like this to get a gun in the first place, and fully support the assassin’s capture and trial.
Had I wanted to say that, I would have said that. I don’t think it’s ethically and morally justified; but I also have no tears to spare for a man who caused such harm.
We are a failed state at this point, broken from top to bottom. Contract law is clearly not resolving our problems, when a man can become so filthy rich by causing so much suffering and death. So no: I don’t think we “recognize that as a society.” If we did, you wouldn’t have so many people gleeful over his death.
That actually demonstrates the problem from another direction. It is treated as acceptable for corporations to kill people for profit; so they do just that on a large scale. Cause and effect. When killing is treated as acceptable it tends to escalate until stopped.
I don’t know exactly, but the level of claims denial means that his decisions almost certainly contributed to the deaths of more than one person, likely more than a hundred, probably more than a thousand.
Here’s an interesting Bluesky series of posts talking about the breakdown of the social contract that United Healthcare has engaged in, and how it explains the glee folks are expressing over this murder:
His job was to cause harm, so he caused a lot of it even if I don’t have exact numbers. That’s just how for-profit health insurance works; you make money by condemning people to poverty, sickness and death.
As I said in the ethics thread it’s innate to the concept, if people make a profit by not doing something then they won’t do it. And in the case of health care, that’s paying out on a policy. The level of perverse incentives is outright absurd, it’s no wonder it’s so awful. Imagine trying to buy even something as simple as a hamburger if the servers only got paid if they didn’t give it to you.
The incentives are even weirder than that. The person selecting the service provider is usually an employer, not the person using the service provided. The employer is looking for the lowest cost service that will look good to potential employees. They know that most employees are rank amateurs at evaluating insurance providers, so cost is an overwhelming criterion.
Then the employee gets the service, and the provider has the perverse incentive you mention.
If I’m buying a hamburger, the company has an incentive to give me the smallest, cheapest hamburger they can for the cost I’ll pay. But I’m pretty good at recognizing shitty burgers, as can most consumers, and if it’s too shitty, I’ll stop shopping there: the inconvenience to me of going to a different burger provider next time is very low.
If I find out that my insurance provider sucks, the best way for me to switch providers is to quit my job and find a new one. That’s one of the most stressful things to do in modern life. The provider, and the employer, both know how locked in the consumer is.
The biggest failure of Obamacare (besides the fact that it’s not just Medicare For All or that it doesn’t even have a public option) is that there is no way to opt out of the plan your company provides and go to the market instead.
In 1981, the good people of Skidmore, MO gathered around Ken McElroy and his wife as they got into his pickup truck in the town square. Members of the crowd opened fire killing McElroy, and despite having close to fifty potential witnesses, authorities couldn’t determine who fired the shots and his murder remains unsolved. For years McElroy had terrorized people in town, was convicted of attempted murder even, and the law was incapable of protecting people. So he was lynched.
I’m in agreement with others that extra judicial killings are just bad for all of us. It represents an erosion of faith in our institutions to provide justice or maintain order and it encourages more violence. At the same time, my sympathies lie with the people of Skidmore rather than McElroy.
We as a nation are in a bad place right now. Many of us were indifferent to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and a lot of us are less than sympathetic towards the United Healthcare CEO. I include myself and I’m not entirely happy with where I am right now as a person.
This is sort of the way I feel. I think very few people are actually condoning this act. But I can fully understand why empathy is in such short supply for this guy, and why people were cracking jokes about his death. An awful lot of people in this country are frustrated with the insurance industry, and with good reason, and they feel pretty powerless to do anything about it.
If you believe that, then entire health insurance industry cannot exist because denying a claim is immoral. Simply absurd. No point in continuing the discussion in that case, I think we can agree on that.
I don’t disagree about the incentives - but it’s also true that sometimes it isn’t the insurance company that deserves the blame. I know, I know - but let me explain. My health insurance card says “United Healthcare” somewhere on it but they don’t actually insure me, they don’t pay for my care and they don’t save money by denying claims. My employer belongs to a group that self-insures and United Healthcare administers one part of the coverage* - but ultimately that group sets the rules and United Healthcare just follows them.
* It also says “Anthem” and “CVS Caremark” and a couple of other companies because they administer the other parts.
I doubt vigilantism is usually justified and find this case abhorrent. However, knowing nothing about ballistics, I am pretty impressed they could read writing that was on the bullet. How is this even possible?
