conuly | You know, it's a little shocking to me

that nobody even seems interested in pretending to have any sympathy for that CEO and his family. (Except, apparently, right-wing media... and they seem to be very carefully not talking about what sort of business he was running and how he was running it.)

Edit: OMG. This was in my email today: Healthcare industry rethinks risk

Guys, I laughed until I cried. I know I shouldn't, but omg. I haven't even read the article yet. Forget what I've said before, apparently you can murder your way to a better world, at least in some select circumstances. (Well. You can if you're a gunman with a grudge. If you're a CEO of an insurance company you can kindly die of shame and spare the rest of us the trouble. Seriously would like to know how many people have died due to United Healthcare's policies.)

(Fuck, is this post getting me on some sort of watchlist? Don't murder people, yay gun control.)

Edit edit: Oh. I've read the article. The risk they're reassessing is whether they should post employee pictures on their websites. Booooooooo! Well, fuck them, murders all around. In some good news: Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield halts anesthesia payment policy after backlash

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dine

while I have zero sympathy for the CEO, I am thinking of his family - assuming they weren't complicit in the business decisions. that's not terribly likely, imo, so I can empathize with their grief at the sudden loss

From:

conuly

Yeah, at least his kids, if he has any.

From:

kshandra

He was a father of two, from what I've seen elsewhere.

From:

moon_custafer

In some good news: Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield halts anesthesia payment policy after backlash

My main reaction has been “I can’t bring myself to blame anybody for celebrating, but as far as I know the guy was a CEO, not an owner/CEO, so his death will barely inconvenience the company,” but I haven’t said anything till now because I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade.

Good to hear the anaesthesia cap is being walked back—I assume they’re pretending it’s nothing to do with the shooting, so they don’t appear to be buckling to threats?

From:

conuly

Maybe it *is* unrelated, I don't know, but the timing certainly is interesting.

From:

moonhare

Exactly!

From:

topaz_eyes

If one's business policies actively kill people, executives should not be surprised when they end up in the crosshairs. Maybe the solution is, change those policies to stop killing people.

From:

conuly

Maybe. Or maaaaaaaaaaaybe the solution is to hire better security and jack up prices to cover the expense.

From:

topaz_eyes

But would there be enough security? 'Cause we know they'd deny even more claims just to pay for them.

From:

solarbird

I'm joking.

Mostly.

People - particularly the very wealthy - forget that government regulation was about as much to protect the wealthy from an outraged populace as it was to product consumers. While regulation can server and has served many purposes, one of them absolutely was anti-guillotine insurance.

That seems to have been forgot.

From:

librarygeek

My maternal grandmother (1902-1995) was wealthy, called herself a Social Capitalist, and she used to say:

If the capitalists don't reinvest their profits in society, society will reinvest in the guillotine.

But she'd say it in French:

Si les capitalistes ne réinvestissent pas leurs profits dans la société, la société réinvestira dans la guillotine.

She thought that her factory workers should be as well off for working in her candy factory, as she was for their labor.

From:

foms

Shuis d'ac.

"no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html)

From:

the_siobhan

Would the security be insured if they were injured protecting him?

From:

conuly

Oh god I do not know.

From:

jessie_c

Without further comment.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-daily-show-ronny-chieng-unitedhealthcare-ceo-killing_n_67527609e4b0036b951e2e2c

From:

conuly

No joke, if the death of a rich man is what gets us some sensible gun control, I'm gonna be pissed.

But no, it'll probably just get us a no shoes on the street rule or somesuch.

From:

moon_custafer

*Reads the article on Yuletide*

What the hell? Shaun Majumder was on an NBC drama?!

From:

conuly

Apparently.

From:

solarbird

Seriously though, fuck that guy. It just got a lot more expensive to be a "health insurance" executive.

Good.

It also needs to be a lot more expensive to be a lot of things.

What can I say, right? Inflation, as we clearly have seen, motivates people.

Maybe this'll motivate some motherfuckers.

From:

conuly

But what's it gonna motivate them to do other than beef up security?

From:

sabotabby

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has” — Margaret Mead

...oh shit I must make a meme

From:

conuly

I suppose that the execs all think they're thoughtful citizens. They certainly change the world....

From:

lilysea

I'm neither surprised nor shocked -

everyone in the US (and a lot of people who've never lived in the US, but have online friends who do)

knows

a story about someone whose health insurance denied them the medically appropriate antidepressant;

a story about someone whose health insurance denied them the medically appropriate epilepsy medication;

a story about someone whose health insurance denied them the medically appropriate migraine medication;

a story about someone whose health insurance denied them the medically appropriate chemo medication for cancer;

to save money.

If health insurance companies cause human suffering - and some ENTIRELY PREVENTABLE DEATHS - by denying coverage of the medically appropriate, doctor-prescribed medication and/or surgery, no one is going to mourn when a health insurance CEO is killed except the friends/family of that CEO.

I lost any sympathy I might have had for the guy when a health insurance company caused the death of someone who I followed online by refusing her the medically appropriate ANTIBIOTICS, even though she was in hospital when the Dr prescribed the antibiotics. They made her "fail" the cheaper antibiotics first, and she died from sepsis in hospital - a death that was entirely preventable if they had given her the antibiotics her Dr ordered when she was first admitted to hospital, instead of battling her Dr about costs for 10 to 14 days.

If I was a jury member, and the case before me was "John Smith's wife died from cancer after his health insurance company refused to pay for the medically appropriate chemotherapy, so John Smith shot the health insurance company CEO", I'd be voting Not Guilty.

From:

conuly

Yeah, but people got scolded for being too happy when Rush Limbaugh kicked it, and that man was the poster child for assholery.

Which reminds me, I need to book a trip to go enjoy myself while metaphorically spitting on his grave.

From:

the_siobhan

Fuck that. If people don't want their death celebrated, they should be better people when they're alive.

From:

chanter1944

I do feel sympathy for the man's children. Absolutely I do. Healthcare and insurance horrors be exactly as they are, but no blameless little kid deserves a loss like this.

From:

conuly

Yeah, no, that sucks.

Though if you're going to lose a parent it's definitely better to lose a parent and be wealthy than to lose a parent and be struggling.

From:

moonhare

From:

conuly

I mean, most of us wouldn't be gunned down at all....

From:

moonhare

“If” might have been a better choice, but this little Imgur snapshot did not show a full conversation.

From:

adafrog

The fact that it took a backlash for them to repeal the policy pisses me off. Also, I'm afraid of what crap they're hiding under the table.

From:

conuly

Maybe it's money under the table?

From:

adafrog

That too.

From:

siliconshaman

Yeah, no sympathy for him here either. Someone over on r/theydidthemaths did the calculations, and that PoS CEO is directly responsible for 10,000 deaths per year thanks to the policies he introduced.

I'd call that justifiable homicide.

From:

conuly

Well, shit.

From:

siliconshaman

yup. and that's not people who died while not covered, that's people who died, who would've lived if they had coverage.

From:

mindstalk

See, that's a difference from Rush Limbaugh, whose death toll (if any) isn't so direct.

From:

killing_rose

I may be the only person on the internet who is like "I'm not gonna lie, my vicious fucking smirk was a thing" and then a coworker and I headed to a work thing and I suddenly got 110 lbs of concentrated st louis batshit who was like "it was a fucking *execution*. This man singlehandedly paid for 3 months of my mother's car loan after she spent 30 days in a coma during covid" and that's how I found out that, yes, this man's loved ones do have a very different view of him than the rest of us. (I'm genuinely not sure their view is actually linked to planet earth. But im just...being kind and not reblogging the memes like i would normally. That's my concession right now.)