Many news outlets’ pontificators were incensed that anyone would voice frustration with health insurance when an industry CEO has fallen.
  • kreskin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    19 hours ago

    On top of killing people as his day job, Brian Thompson was also convicted of drunk driving, insider trading, and fraud.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/1ha7u3e/comment/m16t6db/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

    Brian Thompson was a 3 time loser felon so why was he walking the streets at all? He could have been safe in jail if the justice department did their jobs and applied the same standard of justice to Thompson as they apply to the poors.

    He’s dead because the kleptocracy felating justice system didnt do its job. They should turn themselves in if they want justice. If Luigi is guilty then so are they.

  • fibojoly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    19·
    7 days ago

    Thoughts and prayers :

    • I think it should happen more often.
    • I pray it does (instead of school shootings, let’s say).
  • NutWrench@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    7 days ago

    Sympathy? Hmm . . . let’s see . . . sympathy . . ok. I’m sorry he didn’t contract a really ferocious strain of ass-cancer that his insurance didn’t cover.

  • Luna@lemdro.idEnglish
    3·
    5 days ago

    From the article:

    In other words, it’s fine to defend vigilantes when they kill unarmed Black people or anti-racist activists, but when a CEO’s life is taken, we must solemnly stay silent on the reasons why such a person might be targeted or why bystanders might not be crying.

  • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.mlEnglish
    101·
    7 days ago

    Thank you for calling sympathy customer service. Your call is important to us, a representative will be with you shortly.

    We are currently experiencing unprecedented call volume at this time. Please wait for the next available representative.

    the worst music ever at the highest volume possible starts playing

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    6 days ago

    unfortunately being an asshole is a pre-existing condition and as such cannot be covered at this time.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldEnglish
        53·
        8 days ago

        It is a reasonable first order estimate. See a comment here. I think I will organize this a bit better and make a blog post on this tomorrow. But suffice to say, 51,000 is a good baseline number, based on UHC’s share of the private insurance market and the length of Thompson’s tenure as CEO of UHC. It could be as high as 100,000. But really, at this scale, it ceases to matter. You can only really comprehend it in comparative terms. And his number of victims was order of magnitude greater than that of Osama Bin Ladin.

        • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.eeEnglish
          5·
          7 days ago

          Osama bin Laden was a chump compared to these guys. Osama was already wanted by the US for a crime he did in 1993 and had his Saudi citizenship revoked and he was a stateless runaway doomed to live in hiding and squalor no matter what.

          He wasn’t even the mastermind behind 9/11. Hell, he even had a hard time controlling Mohammad Atta, the ringleader of the hijackers, who wanted the operation to be more about him and his final end more than anything else.

      • TerkErJerbs@lemm.eeEnglish
        301·
        8 days ago

        I’m no math wizard but I’ve read 68k people die per year from preventable shit due to denied claims. Brian worked at United since 2004, CEO since 2021 so he contributed directly or indirectly to that number of deaths per year, at least the portion United is responsible for. United has double the industry average of rejected claims.

        It’s def higher than OP states.

      • Nollij@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        101·
        7 days ago

        Not OP, but it’s going to be really hard to assign a hard value to that. There are plenty of obvious examples where they denied a life-saving treatment. But many of them would’ve died anyway.

        Then there are cases where they deny preventative/early treatments. Some of these eventually led to more serious and fatal conditions, some did not. How do we count these?

        Then there’s quality of life denials. These don’t directly lead to fatal conditions, but can affect morale and the like, thus allowing more serious conditions?

        All of it would be compared to the unexplored alternatives (where treatment was authorized). This is inherently an unknown.

        I’m not defending him by any means. It’s just that his body count is, at best, a rough estimate.

        • bitjunkie@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          7 days ago

          Whether they would have died anyway isn’t a measure of whether it is ethical to deny someone care that was the only chance they had. Removing the possibility is still murder.

  • Chozo@fedia.io
    1001·
    8 days ago

    We’ve received your request for additional sympathy. Our advanced AI systems will now determine your claim’s eligibility.

    …

    …

    Oh, sorry, looks like it’s been denied.