Bullets Found at CEO Shooting Read: Deny. Defend. Depose.
UnitedHealthcare denies 32% of claims.
Was it a modern-day version of Robin Hood?
Legend has it that Robin Hood was an outlaw living in Sherwood Forest with his ‘Merry Men’ — but did he really exist?
There are several versions of the Robin Hood story. The Hollywood one is that of an incredibly handsome man — Errol Flynn — clothed in garments of Lincoln green, fighting for the rights of the oppressed and outwitting the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Robin Hood).
Who is the handsome young man seen on surveillance cameras around New York City? It is believed he arrived at the Port Authority, New York’s bus station on the corner of 8th and 42nd Street, on November 24th — I have an alibi; I flew out that day — and then spent the next 10 days at youth hostels.
On December 4th, at 6:48 a.m., he assassinated the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Inscribed on the bullets was a play on the words by which the insurance industry lives: Deny. Defend. Depose. The unofficial mantra of the insurance industry is delay, deny, defend. In an industry where it is expected that 16 percent of claims will be denied for no other reason than that insurance companies want to save money, UnitedHealth was known for denying 32 percent of claims.
This is how America reacted to the news that the unknown young man had executed Brian Thompson, who was on his way to meet investors for a day to tell them how good business was.
UnitedHealthcare “denied my surgery two days before it was scheduled. I was in the hospital finance office in tears (when I was supposed to be at the hospital doing pre-op stuff),” one user wrote in an X post that received more than 70,000 likes. “My mother was flying out to see me. My surgeon spent a day and a half pleading my case to United when she probably should have been taking care of her other patients,” she added, before saying the surgery ended up going ahead but calling the process “torture (Social Media Backlash).”
Another woman wrote:
“My breast cancer surgery was denied” by a different insurance company, another X user posted. “Breast cancer. She asked me ‘well, is it an emergency?’ I don’t know- it’s (f***ing) cancer. What do you think? I had to appeal and luckily it went through. Evil to do that to people,” she said (Social Media Backlash).
Let’s add some icing to this bitter-tasting cake the insurance industry likes to force-feed Americans. Medical bankruptcy is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Can you imagine? Well, if you live in the U.S., you can imagine. You probably know someone who has lost a lot of everything because of these sharks.
The act of gunning another human being down in the middle of the sidewalk anywhere is abhorrent. It is not civilized. No matter what evil Brian Thompson knowingly or unknowingly committed, it does seem like the way he died was barbaric. The person who committed the act, however, seems to have been pushed over an edge by the work that Thompson does.
Many insurers are ruthless, and the acts of denying humans in need at their most desperate moment demand that elected officials and the courts punish them. Sadly, though, many of the elected officials are not willing to take on the Brian Thompsons of the world because his type pays them too much to look the other way. Democrats have tried to make insurers more responsible, but when the entirety of the other party refuses to go along with them, they can only push so far in defense of Americans — many who then turn right around and vote against their interests and, in the interests of the insurance companies.
I have a feeling that if the young man who, in a moment of vigilante justice not seen since the days of Bufford T. Pusser, the Tennessean sheriff from the 1970s, and maybe Wild Bill Hickock, were spotted on a Greyhound bus, no one would turn him in. A sweet little old lady might reach across and hand him a hard candy or two to suck on while the bus meandered toward the horizon away from New York. Some other passengers might silently off him a can of beer and handshakes for what he did.
The shooter is not a hero by any means. The shooter, however, is no less evil for what he did than what insurance companies do every day. No one is stopping them from denying coverage, and they know this, so they act without fear their actions will ever lead to consequences. I feel as badly for the sons of Brian Thompson as I do for any family whose loved one died because of a denied healthcare claim.
We are beyond living in a time when vengeance should be meted out by anyone. Sadly, however, it seems we are also living in a time when corporations know no limits and fear no higher power.
Would you turn in Brian Thompson’s killer if you came upon him?
A retired physician, my greatest enemies were not diseases, but insurance companies. They killed and maimed more people and their families than infections and degenerative diseases. The profits garnered by insurance companies far exceed the actual cost of providing medical care; every dollar that goes to insurance company profits is another dollar that doesn’t go toward providing health care.
I wouldn't turn him in, but I would urge him to turn himself in. There would be a dozen or more lawyers ready to take on his case.