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I've been a journalist for a long time, which can make people overexposed and disgusting, and in my personal life I've spent several years working on systems of aged care that can make people angry and cruel. I admit that. When I heard that UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered on a New York sidewalk last month, my immediate thought was that it wasn't about his family.
Instead, it looked like this: “What are we here for?” The plot of a John Grisham novel, or just another example of how people, their systems, and society stink?
The Minnesota-based conglomerate UnitedHealth Group, of which UnitedHealthcare is a division, is big enough, controversial enough, and esoteric enough to inspire the kind of conspiracies Grisham writes about. However, the answer turned out to be the latter. The shooting suspect, Luigi Mangione, was a privileged loner, perhaps frustrated by his denial of coverage, or perhaps just looking to exact revenge in general and send a message in the process. . Or maybe he was just off his rocker. Or so they hope future jurors will think.
And what's really shocking is the number of anonymous people on social media. loved loved loved The message they thought he was sending was enough for the rest of us to find in the cesspool an authentic expression of a common frustration that should not be ignored.
So this is another moment where the obvious needs to be said. In other words, killing someone because something doesn't work the way it should is not justified. And no salute to Schadenfreude.
Above all, Brian Thompson was “an incredibly loving husband, son, brother, and friend,” according to a family statement. He is also a “devoted father” to his two sons. He was important to people for reasons other than work, as we all are.
