UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot outside Hilton hotel in Midtown in targeted attack: cops - Just Part and Parcel of visiting a Big City

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

Fun fact: the CEO was a proponent of the ACA.

United initially opposed the ACA tremendously in the years before its passing bc they were concerned it threatened their revenue (and it did hit for a bit but they, as they say, leaned in).

However, for you insane conspiracy theorists, Andy Slavitt (Goldman > McKinsey > Health Allies (acquired by UNH/Optum, the other half of UNH to UHC)), then CEO of OptumInsight, a data analytics segment of Optum, left United to CMS and was a heavy proponent of the ACA. He was later a public bipartisan face for the COVID initiative. His son reportedly suffered serious impacts from COVID.
As an aside if interested -

On September 8, 2020, Slavitt announced that St. Martin's Press would publish a book of his about the pandemic.[54] Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response debuted on June 15, 2021.[55] According to the publisher, the book offers the "definitive inside account of the United States’ failed response to the coronavirus pandemic", with Slavitt detailing "what he saw and how much could have been prevented".

When I learned about this incident, my gut response was: "I guess it's true what they say about US health care that it's a mafia." Personally, I don't believe it was some patient/relative of a patient who exacted this revenge. Most likely the guy got eliminated because he was inconvenient to some forces.
Then I learned this tidbit that only further cemented this view:
He was named as CEO in 2021, leading United's division that deals with Medicare and Medicaid.
People that use Medicare and/or Medicaid don't expect much from their health care, let alone have money for hitmen.
However, it's very well known that Medicare/Medicaid is a feeding ground to all kinds of mafias.

He was CEO for all of UnitedHealthcare, which includes Employer & Individual, Medicare, Medicaid, and several other segments.

Obama made this so much fucking worse it's not even funny. If you go on the internet and you see someone say something nice about the affordable care act, it means they are a fucking shill. I looked up those plans and for like a single 35 old guy, insurance was $400 dollars a month with a $12,000 deductible, and the dems wanted to make it so literally everyone in the country had to have this worthless fucking health insurance or get a huge fine (thankfully the mandate was repealed).

Take it up with your state. In my state, terms on the marketplace are mostly better than that, and there is a lot of competition ...though if you want a better deductible, your premium is going to be higher [I agree that 5-figure deductibles are from hell; it's basically what used to be called catastrophic health insurance].

But what's offered is what states negotiate.

And in what state do estimators ask for age? Not any that I've seen (and no I haven't tested them all, but I've run numbers in several states, both states managing their own marketplace and those with the marketplace being managed Federally).

And the ACA was never a requirement that everyone buy on the individual marketplace.

Hate it if you want, but before the ACA, there was no/virtually no insurance for anyone not employed and not either poverty-level poor or old. Now there is. You might not like the options, and they may suck and be too expensive (as they are for all of us above state-determined Medicaid-eligibility lines and even in employer-based plans) , but they're not 0.

We go back to the status quo in 48hrs tops, the man will be replaced within the month officially with his position being filled literally as we speak behind closed doors. Welcome to late-stage capitalism life.

This is true, and one of many reasons this kind of vigilantism, and celebrating it, is capital-R Retarded.

The only real way for these companies to fix this is to either change the way they do business (not going to happen) or to change the structure of the company such that there is no CEO/head role anymore and direct responsibility can be eschewed from any single person and instead be blamed on a board of like 20-30 people.

Uh, they have a board. As does every American corporation.

And the CEO answers to the Board.

And in this case, the CEO (of UHC) answered to the BoD of UHC and reported to the CEO (of UHG/UNH), who answered to the BoD (of UHG/UNH).

He was not making anywhere near $200/mil per year. His total earnings including salary/stocks/etc was like $9.1 million last year.

Not per year, sure. But upfront comp is a piece of things, but not much of it. 20 years ago UNH stock was a bit over $30. It later dipped for a bit due to scandal, but has been nothing but radically up since. Brian was at a level even back then to receive stock grants. More every year, by huge multiples, both as he advanced and given the nature of the work he was doing, which was critical to growth (M&A, which was how the company mushroomed). Today the stock closed over $610. If the value of what he earned/was granted in 2023 alone was 9.1 million (btw, stock up > 11% just ytd) what do you think he had amassed in 20 years, moving up and stock exploding? Couldn't guess the math (though recent years' grants are probably in 10Ks/10Qs), but $200M probably isn't a terrible guess.

This is a bit of a canard that is thrown out all too frequently. Does a sheep farmer maximize profit by sheering and slaughtering his flock in his first year? No, you shear them for many years. Toyota built a reputation for reliability by selling solid cars that would last for a decade, which in turn earns repeat purchases and good will with potential customers.

If your point is (I am not sure it is) that maximizing shareholder profit short-term is a fool's game, I encourage you to look at UNH's max available stock chart. They've been around awhile and it's been nothing but up since a scandal in the late 2000s gave it a couple years' hit. I agree they are not a patient, measured company, but so far their aggressive approach has been a boon for shareholders.

I almost always agree with your posts,

(thank you)

but this man was, with no hyperbole or exaggeration, the CEO of being a ghoul. He majored in,

Accounting

interned in, and decided to make a career out of ghoulery. He was so successful at this task that the council of ghouls made him head ghoul in charge. He sought out and benefitted from the consumption of the flesh of the innocent and grew fat off of it. You could reach into a fantasy novel, draw out a literal cannibalistic vampire-spawned ghoul, who can devour human flesh without limit, and you’d be hard-pressed to inflict a percentage of the human misery that this guy and the company he willingly led and represented have managed to inflict.

I can't disagree that the industry is inherently (as I said before) craven - or ghoulish, if you like [actuaries repulse me, ngl]. I make no apologies for that industry or that company.

And I won't say, oh, but he did x or y good thing so cancels out, and I won't even say it's complicated (he was a smart man and could have changed direction if he'd wanted), and I won't even say that maybe he thought that the good he or the company did outweighed or justified the miserliness of health insurers or the strife and literal grief that dealing with them brings many.

But on a site that routinely blasts "other people" who celebrate like animals when so-and-so is toppled or murdered, I'm going to apply the same lens to the ones doing it here (or on x or wherever the hell else).

It's ghoulish no matter who does it. I didn't say anyone needed to change what they're doing, just gave my opinion of the slobbering for this particular case. I'd give the same opinion for about any other similar situation that I might have a particular, even if slim, perspective on. I've not repeated my opinion other than to respond to a couple of responses to my initial one, and now in this comment to provide some dry data about money and corporate structure.

I am sympathetic insofar as I also do not like to see families torn apart, but given his wife’s absolutely tepid response, I’m sure they’ll be fine in the long run.

I'm sure they will. Many people have it a billion times worse.

 

[LaxerBRO]

Anyways living in Burgerland, I don't oppose private health insurance. It can be better than a single payer system that is used in the UK and other countries.

In fact, I think that if we made health insurance a not for profit similar to Germany or Switzerland the US healthcare system would be better off.

The whole issue is that by tying health insurance to the best outcome for an investor, it creates a perverse incentive to fuck with peoples care.

 

[I glow in the dark]

Edit: I didn't read the full thing. I don't understand why this dude would use a Citi bike when you need to attach a payment method to use them, leaving a massive paper trail.

People just leave Citi bikes like that all the time. Especially in that part of Midtown.

 

[Stoneheart]

it was RFK Jr and he will not stop till healthcare is cleaned up

 

[neger psykolog]

Uh, they have a board. As does every American corporation.

And the CEO answers to the Board.

And in this case, the CEO (of UHC) answered to the BoD of UHC and reported to the CEO (of UHG/UNH), who answered to the BoD (of UHG/UNH).

Yes I'm aware of that but you're missing the entire point of what I was saying. The CEO is the most prominent figurehead and in order to reduce the risk of that role you either have to anonymize it (extremely difficult/basically impossible) or you have to make the CEO role no longer exist and relegate it to a board and completely remove the CEO role. It's much harder to assign blame to 30 board members.

You may even want to remove the board entirely and just have shareholders do everything but that is getting into complex territory.

The entire point is that if it suddenly becomes a trend that CEOs are gunned down in broad daylight, companies very much will start trying to get rid of that position to one which isn't as easy to target.

 

[FieldPiece]

Don't kid yourself. 100 years ago we already had Company Towns, where the workers and their family were "provided for" quote-unquote in such a way that they were basically shackled to the company in perpetuity. We had seen Dicken's England.

Noblesse Oblige is a romantic concept that we like to tell ourselves made the old times better than they were, but it was more often than not a myth.

While noblesse oblige is looked at through rose tinted glasses tycoons perked up when Fink got shot. That resulted in commies and anarchists being exiled to the USSR where their "comrades" promptly sprayed them with freezing water until they died. The survivors were miraculously cured of Marxism. If a few corpo getting slotted is all it takes for a similar thing to happen to Antifa and commies professors upon exile to North Korea I hope for more CEOs getting got.

Edit: he left a candy wrapper at the scene. Case closed folks. The perp is obvious. The candy wrapper apparently had a limerick which said " CEOs , their lives they go, the only thing the candyman cares about are SEES and oreos"

 

[SCV]

Would you turn down the position if you were offered it?

Yes but I would immediately be ejected by the board (and sued) for doing a "bad" job.

It was more a comment about how "modern life" was built by psychopathic CEOs to begin with. The foundations of everything we have today, computers, medicine, mass transport, shipping and all of that shit is because of the same type of psychopathy that this person probably had.

This is just not true. The inventor of insulin famously sold the patent for $1 so people could afford it. This really seems like some kind of psyop argument to justify psychopaths. Your account name is really making me think.

What's the alternative? Every other country is shit. If there is no private option, obese niggers and Reddit people will actually have a harder time getting their "life-threatening emergencies" treated and will just clog up the line further if the feds run it. If people demand a carrier to pay for everything, they will go insolvent. Then all the current policyholders are mega fucked as they wait for whatever other far more shitty carrier takes the claim overflow and gets backed up for months.

The alternative is allowing people to simply pay directly for medical care at fair prices. It's probably not better than competently run insurance (see: the amish) but it would be better than the shit show we have now and act as a limiter on how bad things could get.

Currently your hospital charges 500$ for an asprin and 100,000$ to remove your appendix because insurance companies like united health have "negotiated" with them and other in cartel network providers to only pay 5% of the "cost". So you either pay your protection fees premiums or a medical emergency ruins you. There's actually a place already doing this and it does work despite them getting fucked with constantly because places like united health and people like Brian Thompson don't want it to spread (https://surgerycenterok.com/).

As if that weren't enough there is already a tax advantaged way to save+spend money on health issues (HSAs) and trump tried to implement a rule forcing doctors and hospitals to charge everyone the same price and post their prices beforehand (link). But of course "people don't vote in there best interest" and orange man bad.

 

[namelesstacotruck]

Sperg theorizing.....

Guy probably had a change of clothes and some clean up supplies in the backpack. He was probably not stupid enough to have a phone on him and if he did a burner phone. His time of attack is when its normal to see foot traffic but not a bajillion people in the way.

He compotently cleared weapon jams and kept composure the whole way. You can see him check on the guy briefly and "make sure". He didnt run away but strolled off and went straight to a bike and went to central park where cameras lessen.

He most likely changed clothes cleaned himself up. Burned those clothes, shoes, and backpack in a fire and dropped the weapon in the central park lake. He may have had padded clothing to mess up profile matching. He may be bald and wore a wig ad well. All of that burned in a trashcan fire that homeless in central park set all tye time. He then strolled out around 8am looking like all the morning run fags and went straight to his hotel and checked out at a normal time, caught an uber. (His phone was there all night and some automated behavior gives geo data to point him being there so he doesnt get tagged in phone data searches) Got on a plane to somewhere else in the US (overseas flight would get scrutiny) maybe taking overseas flight from the next step.

As much as we cheer this on. Screams pro hit. This feels like lizard person on lizard person action and its likely some worse shitter benefitted. The stock going UP on an assasination of the ceo is suspect as well.

 

[daddydeath42069]

Should've covered my procedure bitch.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

they may suck and be too expensive (as they are for all of us above state-determined Medicaid-eligibility lines and even in employer-based plans) , but they're not 0.

yes, they are
a plan that I can't afford and will leave a deductible so huge as to be pointless as "coverage" is zero
I go to the hospital and go bankrupt to the tune of 6 billion dollars without coverage or 7 million with it really doesn't matter.
It is zero.

 

[Gorilla Milk]

I lost a close member of my family last week. She had cancer. A few months ago, she was in the hospital for chemotherapy when her health insurance suddenly refused to pay anything more. She was literally evicted from the hospital on the orders of the insurance company because some tin-badge-having motherfucker decided that she was going to die anyway and further intervention was a waste of money. It was especially devastating because they had initially approved the chemo only to play taksie-backsies once it had already begun. The blow to her morale was significant.

She died horribly, thanks for asking.

I can 100% believe a grieving husband or father would take out a hit on the man he considers responsible for the death of his wife or child.

I'm so sorry man, that's horrific. I genuinely believe that Health Insurance scumbags deserve death. These "people" make money off of taking advantage of the poor (people forced to buy expensive insurance because the government says so) and the sick.
Its one of the Sins that the bible says that "Cry out for Vengeance" - i.e. bloody retribution.

Fuck all of you ghouls.

Imagine bootlicking for Corpos.
Couldn't be me!

Once is a freak incident, twice causes pause for thought.

Was there another CEO who got capped that I didn't hear about?

 

[Fred Herbert]

I'm hoping the NYPD is as incompetent as usual and the gunman is never caught lol.

 

[cybertoaster]

they believe the suspect was an "experienced marksman"

He shot him from 6-7 feet away, the absolute state of pigs thinking that makes you a marksman...

 

[BradCarter]

Edit: I didn't read the full thing. I don't understand why this dude would use a Citi bike when you need to attach a payment method to use them, leaving a massive paper trail.

The dude went agent 47 on someone. I'm sure using a stolen/cloned card isn't below him. Or he found an abandoned one like the other dude said.

 

[quaawaa]

Edit: I didn't read the full thing. I don't understand why this dude would use a Citi bike when you need to attach a payment method to use them, leaving a massive paper trail.

That's because he didn't:

2 hr 34 min ago

Supect in shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO did not flee on a Citi Bike, law enforcement source says​

From CNN’s Brynn Gingras
The e-bike used by the suspect who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was not a Citi Bike, a law enforcement official tells CNN.

As CNN previously reported, the suspect fled — first on foot, then on an e-bike — and was last seen in Central Park early this morning, according to police.

Some background: Earlier Wednesday, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny said the suspect fled on a Citi Bike that had a GPS system. “We’re still tracking video. The last we see with him on that bike is in Central Park,” he said at a news conference. “There are GPS on those bikes. We’ll be working with the company.”

Source (Archive)

 

[CharlesBarkley]

The alternative is allowing people to simply pay directly for medical care at fair prices. It's probably not better than competently run insurance (see: the amish) but it would be better than the shit show we have now and act as a limiter on how bad things could get.

Look how much a c-section costs. That’s considered “fair”. World wide, you looking at 10k.

Niggas be fucked. You would legit kill more people with this, lol.

 

[neger psykolog]

This is just not true. The inventor of insulin famously sold the patent for $1 so people could afford it. This really seems like some kind of psyop argument to justify psychopaths. Your account name is really making me think.

This is true. There are of course plenty of examples of people who were noble and altruistic, but there are many more examples of people who ran companies with a super high risk appetite and ignored warning signs and the role of those companies in society. Many times it ended up making those companies hugely financially successful and there are many times where great harm was inflicted upon society. It also happens that many of the great innovators did things that would inevitably change society (for better or worse is up for debate) simply because of how large those companies were (for example Henry Ford invented the concept of the 8 hour work day).

This isn't just the case in the USA though. There is a lot of research already done on this topic and many CEOs are statistically psychopaths or sociopaths - you have to have a certain mindset to be able to do the things that they do and be able to sleep at night. Look at people like Bill Gates and how "well loved" he was when Microsoft started booming.

I have to say that I've never been accused of being a psyop before but I guess there's always a first time - I will cherish this memory forever. What a fucking braindead retarded thing to say.

 

[Dr. Remulak]

A lot of nerds crying because their insurance will only pay for their generic lexapro.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

A lot of nerds crying because their insurance will only pay for their generic lexapro.

Yes we get it you have a weird fetish for being berated. We do not consent to your kink play retard.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

Cry out for Vengeance" - i.e. bloody retribution.

makes sense
gotta go with silent smotherings instead, that way it's ALSO a Simpsons reference

that bible, always full of wisdom!