Insurance Slaying Sparks Search for 80 Million Suspects

Media treat as unremarkable the fact that "health care" executives often get threats

New York police at the scene where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot this morning, as seen in a CBS report that both identified the victim as Brian Williams and scrolled the message “Here Comes the Sun.” (Screengrab / CBS video.)

There’s a lot of unsympathy out there right now after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Because most people presumably don’t know him but know far too well the nature of his work, it’s not surprising this morning’s shooting in midtown Manhattan inspired an almost instant flood of callous but mordantly hilarious jokes probably best shared only with close friends who have already come to terms with your mordant depravity.

That’s not just out of sensitivity for a murder victim inspiring remarkably literal sympathy today. It’s also because there are dangers in dehumanizing even health-insurance executives, who are, science tells us, biological humans. There’s no evidence Thompson was a bad person, or any worse a person than any of us would be in his shoes. And that’s both the point and the problem.

No one is the bad guy in their own story.

And at UnitedHealthcare, no one is the bad guy in their own company. UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty, for instance, said that, “Brian was a truly extraordinary person who touched the lives of countless people throughout our organization and far beyond.”

There’s zero awareness that the first thing millions of people will think of is that the way health-insurance CEOs touch the lives of countless people is by fucking them to death or out of their money or both.

So if the insurance execs don’t see themselves as bad guys — the way the shooter presumably did — why do they do the terrible things they do?

Well, maybe the problem isn’t the people. Maybe most people would carry out health-insurance jobs without a second thought just as easily as they do at orphanages or hospitals. Or Substack!

Maybe the problem is that we’ve¹ allowed a health-care system to accrete that incentivizes even non-psychotic people to do everyday stuff at work like profit off of basic human need and cleverly deny people care, impoverishing or killing them in the process.

We might assure ourselves we would never do that, but activists for at least a dozen causes out there will gladly school us on exploitative systems we’re all a party to right now. So, as good humans and humanists, let’s give Thompson the benefit of the doubt.

Not for his benefit, but for ours; so we avoid the trap of blaming individuals for predatory health-care systems.

Because there’s still something to take away from this.

Consider the fact that, reportedly, Thompson was the subject of multiple threats.

That news prompted some context/explanation from outlets including the New York Times, which helpfully told readers that threats come with the job. But how the fuck did we allow a system to arise in which the following sentiment can be found in multiple news accounts, and is treated as unremarkable:

The nature of their work is health care! At least, according to that sentence.

But if the people running “health care companies” are receiving threats often, because of the nature of their work, perhaps the nature of their work is not delivering health care.

According to the Times, Thompson’s division included 140,000 employees. Which means he had to get enough money from his “customers” to pay for whatever health care they managed to get covered but also for the salaries and benefits of 140,000 people. Plus profits.

How does UnitedHealthcare make those EnormousProfits? Here’s more from the Times: “Lawmakers and federal regulators have accused UnitedHealthcare of systematically denying authorization for health care procedures and treatments.”

Which is why today there are jokes and a universe of suspects and rampant dehumanization.

But the way to end a system that allows presumably normal people to kill and impoverish the rest of us is not to dehumanize them. Dehumanization is what enables humans to do horrible things to other humans. And it blinds us to the narratives responsible.

We² exalt wealth. We³ worship “business leaders.” The only shared faith is faith in individualism. But our health will improve the more we’re united against dehumanization and dehumanizing systems.

1. Not you, obvi.

2. Not you, obvi.

3. Not you, obvi.