Death of a Insurance CEO
There's been an outpouring of celebration and general catharsis, stunning mainstream media. Why are they so surprised by this?
United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson was assassinated entering a shareholder meeting for UnitedHealth Group on early Wednesday morning. The initial shock that was voiced throughout media outlets at the murder and how it was executed soon turned to greater shock at the public’s reaction: a mix of schadenfreude, glee, dark humor about how his company would’ve treated his insurance claim for a shooting, and most of all, a feeling that justice was done.
Over the last three days since the murder, story after story has been posted on social media about how United HealthCare, under Thompson (an accountant, mind you, which tells you everything about what matters most to these privatized healthcare ghouls), denied claims for everything from anti-nausea meds for pediatric oncology patients to denying breast cancer surgery because it wasn’t “an emergency.” Comments on one of the many, many New York Times stories about the killing and the investigation give a further look at the horrors (I’ve screencapped a couple of them to give you a sense of how the hundreds of comments went) of the industry.
The one comment on the right is especially indicative of the public’s mood. “I don’t find it surprising that there has been so much violence. I find it astonishing that there has been so little. It’s time to stop running the United States as a giant funnel for moving wealth into the pockets of those who are already wealthy.”
Meanwhile, showing the lack of self-awareness that is a hallmark of corporate leaders, this quote ran in a CNN piece. “The people in our industry are mission-driven professionals working to make coverage and care as affordable as possible and to help people navigate the complex medical system,” Mike Tuffin, CEO of the trade association, AHIP, said in a statement. “We condemn any suggestion that threats against our colleagues – or anyone else in our country – are ever acceptable.” [boldface mine]
Gee, Mike, why is it complex? Why is our system so difficult and filled with administrative nonsense? Could it be that you and your colleagues made it that way? Could it be that the eight-decade-long fight against single-payer healthcare has made it so that we continue to deliver worse outcomes at higher costs than any other industrialized wealthy nation? Could it be that there are so many claims, denials, appeals, etc. that it becomes very difficult for patients to figure out on their own? The existence of a complex medical system is only because of people like Brian Thompson and Mike Tuffin. They made it that way. The insurance industry turned healthcare into a nightmare, because they run largely on a for-profit model, and the only way you make profits on healthcare is if you do not provide the very service being paid for!
On the same day as Thompson’s murder, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield in three states in the Northeast had launched a policy change whereby anathesia for surgeries would not be fully paid if it went beyond a certain time limit. I’m friends with an anathesiologist, and she was irate at this announcement, as was the general public, who flooded Anthem with angry calls, forcing them to back down a day later. As I said before, these people have zero self-awareness, and when that is paired with almost crippling amounts of greed, the result is toxic for the people who are reliant upon the system.
Twenty years ago, Medicare/Medicaid had four percent of its costs dedicated to administrative tasks, while the private industry averaged twelve percent. Today, Medicare/Medicaid have cut that down to a bare minimum 1.2%, while the private healthcare industry hums along in double digits still, the maximum allowed being fifteen percent under the Affordable Care Act. One thing the act did not do, because Democrats decided to waste their very large congressional majority in 2009 on playing nice with corporate insurance companies instead of using the public mood to force deeper change, was require these companies to release data every year on how much overhead was adding to patient bills, how many claims were denied, etc. It’s why today, it is very difficult to know the true numbers of rejected claims by the industry, because the only data they release is for Medicare Advantage patients, which is required by law. The under-65 people do not know for certain how bad it is.
While we’re on the subject of greed, Brian Thompson was one of the many United HealthCare execs who dumped their stock options after being notified that a federal investigation was being opened into their high rate of claim denials, but before the news became public. Thompson dumped $15 million in shares, which plummeted in value after the investigation news broke. Ironically, UHC stock actually increased in value after his murder, demonstrating that there is literally nothing that will stop Wall Street from making a buck.
All of that having been said, why is the media shocked? Why so much hand-wringing about how bad it is that people are publicly demonstrating no empathy or sympathy about Thompson’s murder? A month ago, a bare majority of voters decided to shoot the bird at politics, sending convicted felon Donald Trump back to the presidency. Some of them are showing buyer’s remorse already as Trump names a record thirteen billionaires to his cabinet, and announces planned policies that will further make life more expensive for Americans. Twice this year, somebody planned to kill Donald Trump, one time coming agonizingly close to putting a bullet through his eye. Now Mr. Thompson has been murdered by someone who planned, with great malice aforethought, to carry this out publicly and leave as little a footprint as possible. Even if the suspect is caught, good luck finding twelve people who will convict him. This nation has the worst wealth imbalance in its entire history, and while the rest of us worry about spending as carefully as possible and cutting costs for heating and electricity and gas, CEOs and their lackeys in the Republican party are discussing cutting their taxes even more, and are already floating the idea of cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
That level of unbridled, uninhibited, public boasting of wanting to take away the scraps that Americans get compared to many other nations demonstrates how out-of-touch the billionaires are. They may think that by purchasing most of the sources of information (Twitter, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post) that they are going to always be safe from retribution, but angry, determined, fed-up people always find a way. Thompson’s murder is not going to be an anomaly. This is simply a preview of coming attractions, and nobody should be shocked when it happens again.
We reap what we sow.