Summary

Reddit’s r/medicine moderators deleted a thread where doctors and users harshly criticized murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Comments, including satirical rejections of insurance claims for gunshot wounds, targeted UHC’s reputation for denying care to boost profits.

Despite the removal, similar discussions continue, with medical professionals condemning UHC’s business practices under Thompson’s leadership, which a Senate report recently criticized for denying post-acute care.

Thompson, shot in what appears to be a targeted attack, led a company notorious for its high claim denial rates, fueling ongoing debates about corporate ethics in healthcare.

  • Tiefling IRL
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    6 days ago

    It’s kinda hilarious watching billionaire owned media try to suppress the fact that absolutely no one feels bad for the CEO. The same thing happened when some billionaires decided to visit the Titanic, and after the Trump assassination attempt. The memes afterwards were top notch

    Everyone is so fed up with this country and the shit is this close 🤏🏼 to the fan

    • audaxdreik@pawb.social
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      6 days ago

      I’m still absolutely flabbergasted at how quickly we all moved on from Trump literally getting clipped in an attempt on his life.

      They tried to muster some outrage and solidarity, but most of us just shrugged and went, “Damn. Oh well, maybe next time.”

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        He didnt get clipped. He cut his hand on glass, on the ground, and didnt realize it, then transfered the blood to his head. Thats why his ear was miraculously fully recovered like a week later when he was caught on camera without bandages.

          • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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            nothing besides the picture of him with blood on the side of his head with no visible injury, and another one with a bandage off a little after a week after the shooting with not a single sign of injury (ears dont heal that fast), and the fact that he absolutely refused to let anyone see his wound or the medical records.

            Trump is an opportunistic aggrandizemer.

            If he legitimately got even the slightest injury, he would have been ripping the bandage off 15 times a day and pointing at it and screaming about what the “evil woke liberal mob” did to him. And he didnt.

            he barely acknowledge it at all after a few days. Does that sound like the Trump you know? The trump that ruminates and obsesses for years, even decades over perceived and imagined slights? That constantly comments on them, regardless of relevance to the topic at hand?

            • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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              My guess is that a piece of teleprompter glass grazed an old man’s ear. Ears are known to be bloody, moreso on older people. But there’s no way in fucking hell he actually took a bullet, he wouldn’t even have that ear.

              So yeah, your assessment fits.

              • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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                6 days ago

                Yeah, I figured it was from a dozen burly secret service guys wrestling a 78 year old man to the ground.

        • ɔiƚoxɘup@infosec.pub
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          5 days ago

          Funny I always thought he was juicing like they do in professional wrestling, they cut themselves just a little bit to make it look like they’re injured.

        • NostraDavid@programming.dev
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          6 days ago

          Weird, since I didn’t see blood on his hands (especially his right hand).

          Are we really starting conspiracy theories that are already going the direction of “yeah, but was it really an assassination attempt???”

          I don’t have any love for the guy, but holy shit, I don’t need Lemmy starting conspiracy theories. Back to reddit if you do.

        • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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          6 days ago

          Gotta admit in hindsight, that was funny as hell.

          He got to pose for like a week like a badass and then quietly remove the ear bandaid.

      • Freefall@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        IIRC, the final verdict was that he smashed his ear on an agents holster. It wasn’t a bullet or shards of teleprompter glass.

        • audaxdreik@pawb.social
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          6 days ago

          You know I’m honestly not sure. Mostly good I think?

          Sidestepping the issue entirely of the act itself - strictly speaking more about the news cycle around it. I don’t know that it needed much more extensive, exhausting coverage. Just given the nature of the news currently, you gotta admit, surprising right? I’m not even trying to imply any sort of conspiracy about why it wasn’t more popular. I’m just saying, I think news cycle would’ve latched on harder if they could have, but the public gagged and said no thanks, we’re simply not interested, causing them to shift focus.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      Its also hilarious that lemmy.world admins/mods did the same thing with early threads about this yesterday, nuking individual comments celebrating Thompson’s death and 24 hr instance wide banning the users that made those comments, then within 2 hrs they undid the bans, and by today seem to have just given up trying.

      https://lemmy.zip/post/27427367

      • NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world
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        Taking a look at the recent modlog, as well as other comments around here, it looks like they’re trying to find the right balance for what’s okay and what has crossed the line.

        There are an alarming number of comments that are actively encouraging murder and the amount of upvotes that even the worst of those comments receive is sickening.

        • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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          Something something “kill the billionaires… in minecraft” /s

          There are an alarming number of comments that are actively encouraging murder and the amount of upvotes that even the worst of those comments receive is sickening.

          Can you really blame people, though? The poor and middle class been screwed and driven against each other by ultra-rich assholes for decades. Murder might not be the most ethical solution from a moral purist standpoint, but at least it has people talking and agreeing about the underlying problem.

          • sem
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            6 days ago

            You can both not blame people, AND also not allow speech like that.

        • bane_killgrind@slrpnk.net
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          6 days ago

          For some people in might be self defence, who knows who has a treatable illness they were denied coverage for.

        • hemmes@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          I’m only seeing one upvote and one downvote lol

          I think people are having a hard time deciding whether to celebrate your comment or not

    • piskertariot@lemmy.world
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      Billionaires who own the means of production trying to own the means of communication as well.

      When they can’t, they’ll own the government, and outlaw it.

      It’s like poetry.

    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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      Lol, I appreciate that final line in your comment. So many of us were that close back in 2020… Now things are slated to be worse, and I think I speak for at least millions of Americans when I say we are just fucking over it.

      When we’ve tossed out any semblance of justice in our country at the highest levels, literally ruling that the president is immune from all prosecution (you know, like a fucking king), then asshole corpos that indirectly murder countless people getting gunned down doesn’t exactly concern us. In fact, this sort of thing genuinely seems more just than what our highest courts are allowing.

      Shit is fucked up in this country, and I don’t think many of us want to pretend otherwise any longer. I’m not advocating violence, but I definitely don’t think I’ll lose sleep over this situation.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        Royalty has forgotten that laws are the peaceful alternative to the guillotine. If you stop enforcing laws that protect the peasants what do you think is going to happen?

      • ɔiƚoxɘup@infosec.pub
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        5 days ago

        I’ll quote something that I heard from someone earlier today. “I don’t advocate violence, but I also can’t pretend that justice was not served.”

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      The US mocked Trump for being shot at, then failed to keep him from being elected again.

      Pretty good sign that people are not going to direct that anger towards actually fixing the problems.

      • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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        My empathy for America was lost decades ago when literal children were gunned down in Sandy Hook.

        We didn’t collectively mourn as a nation and do anything. Instead, some went to defend guns. Others went to blame the victims, the parents who are literally holding their lifeless child in their hands.

    • ɔiƚoxɘup@infosec.pub
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      5 days ago

      I disagree. I think it just hit it. Think about how shooters crave noteriaty. Think of how this assain is seen as a hero. No. This is just the beginning.

      I think too many people saw this as a kind of justice that the courts have never and will never provide.

      I don’t advocate violence. I also don’t think this has a different outcome.

      • john89@lemmy.ca
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        I actually agree (with you.) This could be the start of a movement.

        Hopefully this hero is protected and makes a clean escape. The response from law enforcement is disproportionate because it was a rich person that died instead of someone like us.

        Remember, they wouldn’t bat an eye if any of us were killed in this manner. It happens all the time and goes unsolved all the time because law enforcement primarily exists to protect rich people.

        • ɔiƚoxɘup@infosec.pub
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          I’m anxious for what happens next. If this spirals, we’re about to start living in some “interesting times”.

    • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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      Nah dude, this shit finally hit the fan. Just wait. Terrorism works. Look at what bin Laden did to this country - is it not obvious to everyone alive before and after that he won? He wanted to destroy America and he did. What this was is an act of terrorism, and it’s going to work. Corrupt leaders all over the spectrum are getting nervous. Americans are armed to the teeth and pissed. It only takes a couple of lone wolves with intelligence and gun skills to do some major damage. And who doesn’t wanna be famous these days? I mean who doesn’t like this guy? I’d put him on the cover of time as person of the year. This is just the beginning of some very interesting times. I can’t believe it took this long.

      And even more uplifting, this isn’t politically divisive. There isn’t going to be right vs left retribution over this. The entire political spectrum save for a few uppity pearl clutchers (mostly lib elites) are celebrating this.

      • Akuchimoya@startrek.website
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        5 days ago

        School shootings are just a matter of course now, they’re not even newsworthy anymore unless there’s an Uvalde-level of utter incompetence involved. And even then, what happened? Nothing, nothing happened to the cowards who were complicit and accomplices to the murder of children by actively preventing people from around the killer. We’re told to get over it.

        So, you know, if I had to choose between school children being murdered as a matter of course and evil profiteers who revel and flourish on the pain and suffering of everyday people being murdered as a matter of course, I’d definitely chose the latter. I wouldn’t then tell people to get over it, I’d tell people the system obviously need to be dismantled and rebuilt entirely.

        My real preference would be that there are no evil profiteers who revel and flourish on the pain and suffering and that systems be functioning for the people in the first place, but unfortunately that’s not an option.

    • sbv@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      r/all is covered with positive press for the shooting. Anything getting removed would have to be pretty egregious.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      It’s bewildering that aggressively-independent media feels equally cagey about randos saying “good riddance.” Like if they allowed that, they would be forced, forced!, to let Nazis says the same about trans people.

      As if having an opinion is a contradiction.

      Mods of all websites: your role doesn’t even require following written rules. If your temper is slow and your bans temporary, you can go by vibes alone, and you are doing a favor to the entire community. Just deal with assholes before the rest of us have to. When “the rest of us” plainly agree that some prick’s death is more funny than tragic, silencing that is censorship for the sake of censorship, and people will seek places without you in charge.

  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    One medical doctor, whose identity the Daily Beast confirmed, commented with sympathy for Thompson’s family and said the killer should be charged with murder, but then wondered about the damage the CEO had done.

    “I cannot even guess how many person-years UHC has taken from patients and their families through denials,” they wrote. “It has to be on the order of millions. His death won’t make that better, but it’s hard for me to sympathize when so many people have suffered because of his company.”

    “What has bothered me the most is people that put «fiduciary responsibility» (eg profits) above human lives, none more so than this company as run by him," wrote another medical doctor, who also spoke to the Daily Beast to confirm their identity. “When other’s human lives are deemed worthless, it is not surprising to have others view your life of no value as well.”

    These doctors know what’s up.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      The level of greed is so much worse than any normal person understands. They do NOTHING. They aren’t medical field professionals, they don’t need to ever step foot in a hospital or clinic, they only inflate the cost, catastrophelicly with no insurrection, only horribly when you’re with them, create endless loopholes to deny coverage with, and use non medical, non trained or consulted opinions and reasoning to justify it, and they are all too educated to not know full well they are lying to get out of paying any bill ever.

      Denying someone with crippling medical issues access to treatment with lies and misinformation to shave one more sliver of profit for a parasitic middle man is so many orders of magnitude above evil it’s breath taking.

      • Benjaben@lemmy.world
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        Denying someone with crippling medical issues access to treatment with lies and misinformation to shave one more sliver of profit for a parasitic middle man is so many orders of magnitude above evil it’s breath taking.

        Well said. Really wish people understood this better and how utterly psychopathic and heartless the entire idea of “maximizing profits” in this context is.

        Put another way - a for-profit insurance firm is a weird kind of company that does better when it refuses to provide what its customers pay for. It’s not some surprising or counterintuitive result, it’s baked into the business model, on purpose. That’s deeply malignant just at a glance, and it’s all we really need to know when deciding whether it should be involved with healthcare.

        • mpa92643@lemmy.world
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          You know what’s really insane? Before the ACA was passed, there was no federal requirement for how much insurance companies had to pay out on healthcare costs. The ACA set a minimum of 85%, so no less than 85% of premiums has to actually go toward paying for medical services.

          Before that, they could literally just pocket 75 cents for every premium dollar if they wanted to with zero legal repercussions. I guarantee we’d be on our way there if the ACA were never passed.

          For-profit health insurance should be illegal. Same thing with for-profit hospitals. I’ve read stories about doctors whose hospitals were bought by for-profits or VCs and turned into patient mills where they’re forced to push unnecessary elective surgeries and provide the bare minimum of care to maximize profits.

          A healthy population is good for society and it should be something we invest in. We shouldn’t make a business out of someone getting sick, and then another business out of charging then exorbitant amounts of money for getting treatment, and then ANOTHER business to harass them because they can’t pay that exorbitant amount.

          • Benjaben@lemmy.world
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            You’re absolutely right, I did kind of momentarily forget that, even having lived through it. They could also just deny care or coverage for “pre-existing conditions” and just drop you as a customer as soon as you get a major illness. And guess what, they did! That’s maybe the most egregious, but hey, we’re not lacking for contenders.

            The ACA felt like a serious change for good in this country at the time. And I gotta say, watching the way it got ratfucked, misrepresented, deliberately destroyed…I dunno, it was heartbreaking. I think it showed me what we were in for, I guess, almost a straight line passing through that and other things like Citizens United, repeal of Dodd Frank, and everything else that led to today. Some of those I can’t fault everyone for being unfamiliar with, but damn.

            Seeing how we responded to the ACA in particular as a nation was really telling. I knew idiots whose lives got directly measurably better by using it for their own insurance, and still thought it should go and voted for the folks who said they’d get rid of it. What do you even do there? Sad stuff.

      • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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        Greed is common throughout history. One might say it’s human.

        I disagree. The worst monsters wear human faces. At the top, you have the dragons with their hoards. The billionaires. The owner class. The ones who just accumulate. Then you have the dragon’s monsters. They may well be far worse than the Dragons themselves, but the dragons just demand more, they don’t care how. These monsters line up to take a bit of the hoard. The more they can deliver the dragons and their fellow monsters, the more they get themselves.

        And what do the monsters do? They lie. They cheat. They swindle and con. They budge their way into things in the phrase of “efficiency” and “improvement.”

  • Echostorm@programming.dev
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    I have been following the news about Brian Thompson’s assassination in New York, and I am astounded by the flood of sympathy the media has poured out for him. Why? This man spent his entire career working tirelessly to deny healthcare to millions of Americans, all in the name of lining his own pockets and enriching shareholders. Yet the media praises him for his “kindness” and “generosity.” Let me be clear: pushing your company’s claim denial rate to nearly double that of your most cold-hearted competitors, bankrupting families through deceptive fine print and delay tactics, is not kindness, and it is not generosity. No, setting up boiler-room style offices with denial scoreboards is one of the most inhuman things I can imagine.

    I spent nearly a decade writing software to help hospital systems fight insurance claim denials, and I can tell you, these insurers are getting better at it every year. They deny even the most justified claims, banking on the fact that most people won’t have the energy, resources, or will to fight back. And for the majority, they’re right. We had a team of a dozen nurses and PAs working alongside twice as many analysts. These were people who knew the system inside and out. We knew the deadlines, the bureaucratic jargon, the documentation required, and we tracked every claim meticulously. But even armed with all that knowledge and experience, we couldn’t win them all. On a good month, we might win two-thirds of the denials. That was considered a success.

    What’s even worse is that for every claim we fought, there were countless others that never even made it that far, we only got denials on services that actually happened. A patient’s doctor tells them they need surgery, but an insurer like UnitedHealth says no and that’s it. The patient gives up and it is difficult to imagine they get better.

    If you’ve ever had a serious medical condition—and I pray you haven’t—you know how much it drains you, how it strips you of your will to do anything. When every moment is agony, you don’t have the strength to sit on hold for hours, fill out endless forms, or chase down a bureaucratic system designed to wear you down. All you want is to sleep, because that’s the only place that pain can’t find you. How many people have simply lacked the strength to fight back, and ultimately succumbed to their conditions? How many families have been driven into poverty, their lives torn apart by a single emergency, all because of these executives’ policies?

    We all know someone who has been through a health insurance nightmare and we also know that while political changes could probably help this problem the reality now is that these people are making a choice to run their companies this way, knowing full well the impact of their greed and indifference.

    Where are your tears, your headlines, for the thousands of people and families whose lives have been destroyed and whose loved ones have died because of these same executives?

  • WaxiestSteam69@lemmy.world
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    I was reading an article that quoted his wife about what a great guy he was. It reminded me of Ken Lay’s wife talking about her families liquidity problems after the Enron collapse. Hundreds of employees lost everything and she’s griping about liquidity.

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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      We had that last year in Ohio when Householder was sentanced to 20 years prison for his roll in the bribery scandal. He cried about hard that was going to be on his family and the judge told him “you should have thought about that before accepting those bribes.”

    • nimble
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      I saw one that had a different relative say he was an honest person and hard worker.

      This honest person’s company had $290 billion in insurance premium revenue in 2023 and they had $22 billion in profit. I always knew insurance was a grift but holy fuck.

      And the company rewarded him with a $10 million compensation package in 2023. No living person works hard enough in a single year to earn multiple lifetime’s of average worker wages.

      • WaxiestSteam69@lemmy.world
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        Being honest and a hard worker could be used to describe a hit man. Working hard at something unethical isn’t a virtue.

        • Radioactive Butthole@reddthat.com
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          Someone else in another thread said their friend inherited a billion dollars and is the hardest working person they’ve ever met and I honestly couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

          • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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            I love reading Melon Husk’s claim that he works 100 hours a week. He’s the CEO of five companies, which means even if his claim is true, being a CEO is a 20-hour-a-week job.

          • underisk@lemmy.ml
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            i wonder what job the hardest working person they ever met does? gotta be something like alaskan crab fisher or deep sea welder. definitely not some bullshit email job.

        • nimble
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          United health group listed 5 executives in their def14a filing which details executive compensation of 5 executives. Brian was the 4th executive, the ceo of the united health group was awarded 23 million and then there were two others who got 16 million. Overall it came out to about 75 million. Which i agree is less than i was expecting for 22B profit but it is still multiple lifetime’s of wages for an average worker

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      Ken Lay who tooooootally died before being sentenced and toooootally didn’t disappear into a foreign country

  • sexy_peach@feddit.org
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    This is a really uncomfortable situation for me as a user and made me want to use Lemmy even more

  • EvilZ@thelemmy.club
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    Death is always tragic… I don’t care if the guy is a billionaire or not, he or she had family.

    I would however agree that having such wealth is clearly perverse and clearly done at the expense of others. You don’t get that rich by being kind hearted and generous…

    In any case, if you become CEO of a business that has sloppy morals and essentially encourage parasitic behavior… Don’t expect to be loved… Or surprised that you may get shot…

    It’s like being the CEO of Blackwater… No one that has clean hands takes that position…

    No one becomes a CEO by accident, it was a choice and ambition to become that level of scum…

    Now imagine if companies could only give a maximum of around 2000$

    I wonder how that would change the landscape of American politics

    • weeeeum@lemmy.world
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      I feel actions of CEOs and execs undo any empathy they deserve. Hitler had a wife he was loyal to, he was vegetarian as he was sympathetic towards animals and apparently was generous to those around him, but he DOES NOT deserve any empathy.

      The damage they caused warrants them zero sympathy. Millions of Americans die due to lack of coverage.

      Just my personal take.

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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        The one big difference I can think of is that Hitler’s death did something. This guy here, he’s a CEO. Was it morally acceptable for him to die? Sure, he caused thousands and thousands of deaths by his company leadership, after all. I’d prefer something else, but I won’t miss him, either… But sadly it only frees up a marginal portion of their wealth, and that wealth just goes to other rich assholes.

        To take down the corrupt part, you have to get rid of the shareholders and moneygivers, which sadly are quite a few.

        • Denidil@lemm.ee
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          Apparently it already has gotten another insurance company that had just announced a ghoulish coverage policy for anesthesia to reverse course.

        • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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          You don’t know the consequences of this CEO’s murder. Only a short time has passed. It may inspire a string of murders targeting unethical leaders scaring people from taking those positions and making unethical decisions or, perhaps, an entire revolution. Maybe it inspires nothing. It has definitely lead to some additional conversations, and I think that is a good start.

          Murder is wrong. Punishment without trial is wrong. Denying critical benefits and putting people into crippling debt in search of profits is wrong. Someone did one wrong thing to stop other wrong things. We’ll see where it leads.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          No, terrorism has a bad reputation because of media, but if these people were scared for their lives to do what they’re doing then some of them would chose to not do it. It sucks that anyone ever feels the need to resort to terrorism, but it has historically worked a number of times to accomplish good things. It is an evil tool, as all violence is, but, as all tools, it does have a utility.

          • EvilZ@thelemmy.club
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            5 days ago

            Well…

            If people knew they would be prosecuted and have their legacy tarnished and end up in jail they would think twice… These elites care about their legacy and image.

            When there is a lack of accountability and watchdogs that actually hold power…

            Imagine if insurance companies were made to pay up 300 millions in penalties but the reality is these people get away with it by getting a good lawyer and accountant… This is where I get the the desire to shoot them…

    • AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works
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      eh, a CEOs family has made their peace with the blood money. like most of us would never even consider marrying someone who is blatantly responsible for thousands of not millions if deaths. so I cant feel sympathy for a partner. I could feel sympathy for young kids, but the guy was 50, so it’s fair to assume any kids are at least 18, at which age you either cut contact with a parasite like that or become similar. I guess I just have a hard time feeling sympathy for people who are set for life off of the suffering of others and have never spoken up, attempted to change anything, or just left

      edit: typos

      • InputZero@lemmy.world
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        It’s okay to feel two things. I feel bad that something tragic happened, but also good that it couldn’t have happened to a worse person. I don’t know anything about his kids and I don’t want to. I hope his kids leave the spotlight and have a happy, peaceful life. Of course if they choose to follow in their fathers footsteps deals off, but if they just choose to live quiet, small lives like the rest of us they should be given peace.

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      Social contract is broken. We’re back to kings and peasants.

      More heads will roll and I say good ridence!

      Someone being invaded in Ukraine or someone in Gaza being bombed, I feel for them, they did nothing to deserve this. But people like him? Bottom on my care list.

      Criminals on death row likely had more soul than those taking advantage of millions. French got it figured out… We should be more like French.

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      It can both be sad for his family in a way that everyone can recognise, and also not sad in the slightest, at the same time.

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        Fuck his family too if they cared about this parasite. He’s responsible for thousands of other families losing their loved ones.

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      No one that has clean hands takes that position…

      The same could be said of every billionaire.

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            Also, how much will people sell their soul and human decency for?

            If you’re worth $60 mil, you may want to consider personal protection and body guards, especially if you’ve sold your human decency making people hate you.

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      Pretty much my feelings. I won’t celebrate violence and death, but I’m not gonna pretend that the world isn’t a LOT better off without him. Or that there’s some really funny takes floating around out there.

      • EvilZ@thelemmy.club
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        I agree, he was not a positive contribution to our world. But I cannot condone killing as it doesn’t improve the system. These people just get replaced, there is a reason they are in power it’s because they have contingencies…

    • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      You’re right, he did have a family. And when you think about it, his family also benefited from him killing thousands of people. Hmm…

    • inv3r510n@lemmy.world
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      I also had a father. Only mine was taken from me by this healthcare system. Fuck this guy. Fuck his family. Their lavish lifestyle is fueled by denying people like my father care. Fuck them and anyone who licks their boots.

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      I don’t care about his family because his family expects my family to serve them.

      Fuck that.

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    If Reddit mods (or lemmy mods for that matter) are overwhelmed by the workload of a thread, they should lock it, and clean it up. not delete it!

    • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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      I came here to post, not that anyone cares, that this is the straw that broke this pathetic camel’s back for me with Lemmy. The limited user base and incredibly reduce quality and quantity, clunky tech…I was willing and happy to bear it all thinking I was getting out from under the thumb of fucking corporate censorship and bullshit mod oversimplification. Instead the locked the News thread on the assassination https://lemmy.world/post/22761236 and deleted my comment that said “can’t imagine why” without explanation, ostensibly as it “encouraged or celebrated violence”(https://lemmy.world/comment/13794258).

      I provided a response and then they locked the thread. If we can’t even have a discussion about the world why the fuck would I be on fucking Lemmy instead of another shite censored, billionaire-owned platform that at least has user & content depth?

      1.5 years, 1300 comments, fuck Lemmy.world and the mod @JonsJava who understands his position in facilitating respectful dialogue that conform to rules to be “overbroadly apply them and pretend it’s something that needs censoring so I can get my jollies” and then say “I don’t have time to deal with this” when you get blowback and lock a thread with tons of engagement. LOL talk about shooting yourself in the foot Lemmy.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        The billionaires choose violence in the form of killing hundreds of thousands of poor people per day. This isn’t murder. It’s community defense.

        • Shatur@lemmy.ml
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          Won’t they just replace one CEO with another and increase their security?

          I think for proper defense we need to unite against them.

          Not defending the CEO, just saying that killing him won’t solve the actual problem :(

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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        If your definition of “sane” is authoritarian bootlicking and swallowing Eastern propaganda like it’s candy, sure. Say, I wonder what’ll happen if you try criticizing China, Russia or North Korea on your instance?

        • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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          I criticize and ask directly all the time. I learned not to post or meme reply like I’m an actual adult having a conversation in those spaces though. It takes some getting used to, but it’s possible. People really have a weird skewed view of what it’s like to be a .ml user, I see more privacy and meme posts than anything else. All the political crap usually comes from .world in my feed.

      • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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        I was kinda disappointed I couldn’t find anything with .ml when all the .world mod drama was going on. Plenty of meme’s but nothing in the news and politics communities when I checked at the time.

  • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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    From a mod of /r/medicine:

    People - Please don’t make the life of your mods a living hell.

    Anything that is celebrating violence is going to get taken down - if not from us, then from reddit. I think all the mods understand that there is a high level of frustration and antipathy towards insurance and insurance execs, but we also understand that murdering people in the streets is not good.

    We are a public group of medical professionals, we still need to act like that.

    And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.

    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.

      The issue will stay systematic if we dont hold the people who make the decisions in the system accountable. The CEOs decisions directly impacted people, thats not a system thats his choice. Poverty is systematic too, but when a poor person does a crime they have to suffer the consequences of it. God forbid rich criminals see consequences. Mods seem to be arguing he had no agency in his choices which is a lie especially if you compare him to other insurance CEOs

      • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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        Not only that, but his particular company denies claims at twice the industry average. UHC isn’t in the same category as the rest of the industry, they’re particularly bad.

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          Alt: image included in a Boston globe article published today that shows claim denial rates per several insurance companies, average is 16% United is 32%

          The big gap is indicating they are probably trying to do as shitty a job as possible without incurring legal repercussions on top of already being in a fucked up industry. For-profit insurers makes as little sense as for-profit prisons or military or mail.

        • kipo@lemm.ee
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          Yes, and also all these companies are evil and they all are more than worthy of the UHC CEO treatment.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.

      No, but he certainly profited of it, and made it worse for people who had the misfortune of being trapped with united.

      Fuck him, and fuck that hangwringing excuse bullshit. Maybe it wont be so systemic if more heads continue to be popped.

    • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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      And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.

      Sure he did. It may have only been one subsection of it, but he absolutely had blood on his hands for his decisions. You don’t get to run an insurance company with one of the highest denial rates out there and not have culpability.

      And even if somebody else steps up and doesn’t fix it, that doesn’t absolve him of the blood on his hands.

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
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      I don’t see why they wouldn’t just let the reddit Admins deal with it, honestly. they’re unpaid workers, let the paid managers step in if they must.

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        I can’t speak for Reddit, but on Lemmy, admins keep track of “unresolved reports” and failing to resolve reports on a community you moderate is grounds for removal.

        • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
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          Were I in their shoes, I’d prep my community to switch to lemmy, then wait to be removed. But I’m quite biased against reddit :p

      • kboy101222@sh.itjust.works
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        Because then the admins will remove them as mods and install their approved puppets that will follow everything the admins tell them

        • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
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          If the mods are already behaving in the way reddit desires for fear of removal, would installing proper puppets make much difference?

          • kboy101222@sh.itjust.works
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            Yes.

            Wishing violence on someone, no matter how deserved, is against reddit TOS.

            Doing anything at all that an advertiser might not like isn’t officially banned, but the second admins take over it’ll be all but the official policy. A doctor wants to complain about an insurance company that might advertise on Reddit? [Removed]. Want to ask about your symptoms of a drug that advertises on Reddit? [Removed].

            Admins are just reddit employees and have to do whatever is best for reddit, which under spez means being as advertiser and AI friendly as possible.

            Beyond that, admins can’t be fucked to respond quickly when users are doxxed, harassed, or threatened with death. And this is in a discord/slack designed to let moderators communicate with the admins. Why would they respond to anything users say on a single subreddit if they can’t even respond to dozens of mods being threatened without a board meeting first? Heaven forbid some major issues come up that need seeing to, cause the admins will not do anything.

            I passed along dozens of instances of harassment, doxxing, death threats, and straight up CSAM, many of which were directed at me, inclusing having been DMed CSAM images. It would always take the admins days or even weeks to respond. When someone attempted to doxx me (with incorrect info), it took the admins nearly 2 weeks to ban the user.

            I know to a lot of people this reads like the moderators just giving in to the admins, and it is, but until more and more people move here or somewhere else, reddits the main place for these groups, and therefore they have to play by reddits rules, because breaking those rules hard enough is the only time admins give a fuck, and that does not end well for users or mods.

            • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
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              I’m not sure I fully agree with the idea of continuing to limp Reddit along until enough people switch, and only then torching it. That didn’t work for twitter, as Mastodon was available for years, but people only properly migrated away from twitter when it became unbearable to use. AFAIK, Digg died a similar death.

              I suspect we would get a more steady stream of migrants here if Reddit became so blatantly pro corporate that they censored posts in the way you describe. Then people would actually be motivated to switch.

      • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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        Ikr?
        Oh you’re struggling? Lock the sub until the heat dies down, it ain’t rocket science 🤷‍♂️

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      Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing.

      Bullets outnumber CEOs, and guillotines can be resharpened

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      I’m pretty sure they’re just purging the Ai training data to keep Gemini from suggesting capping a corpo when they won’t pay for grandma’s nausea medication during her chemo.

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        “Hey Gemini, my health insurance company has denied my claim, what are my next steps?”

        I am sorry to hear you are struggling with your health insurance claim. According to Reddit[1], the best way to appeal your claim is to access the Wayback Machine or Archive Today to find out who the executives are for your insurance company and communicate with them directly about the seriousness and validity of your claim.

        Here are some effective communication tips to ensure the success of your appeal:

        1. Volume matters - use subsonic ammunition and a suppressor. You don’t want to disturb your neighbors when pleading your claim.
        2. Practice makes perfect - you may need to hand cycle the spent rounds. Unless tuned, the gas blow back won’t be enough to eject and then chamber another round.
        3. Go eco - e-bikes help the planet. In a traffic packed city, e-bikes provide a great opportunity to reduce pollution.
    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing.

      Not if this sort of thing keeps happening to them.

    • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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      I’m like, oh other people will take his place? Okay, can we get those other people’s names, address, and daily itinerary? Asking for a friend.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.

      Yeah, but he led the company that had the highest rate of coverage denial ao he was the absolute worst one in the entire industry.