Not really murdering for profit. More like stealing their money while leaving them for dead.
We really need to end health insurance all together.
And also probably pull out the guillotines and remind the aristocracy how many of us there are and how much they actually do depend on us.
I honestly believe a general strike across the country would very quickly put things back on a course for the better.
It’s scheduled for 1/20
I heard the other day if billionaires were shot at the same rate as schools kids, we'd run out of billionaires in 2 months.
But frankly, that's one of those things you'd have to see to believe.
Missouri
When people are healthy, they can work. This is profitable for companies. When someone is sick, they can't work. This is not profitable for companies. So it's better to kill the ill. Just like in Auschwitz. Right, insurance companies? Right, Musk? Right, Trump? Right, most Americans who voted in favor of this system and empowering mega corps at the cost of most people by voting for Trump?
Issue is, most people's main issue is with the people in the system. They think, the right people will make the system work.
A lot of right-winger, who agrees with the CEO killer would say the CEO's main problem was going after good people, and not the "drug addicts", etc.
Ah, yeah, the drug addicts. Mostly created by the same system. Which created drug addicts from these "good people", as rich white people got loads of Oxycontin prescribed. I don't know what's in the food in the US, or what it's lacking, but making connections as simple as 1+1 is for most too difficult.
Fun fact: did you know Kamala's campaign spent $1.5 billion in just 15 weeks compared to Trump's campaign spending only $382 million?
I think people voted for Trump more for his promise to fix the economy and to deport the illegals. I guess we'll find out over the next 4 years, if we don't end up destroying the planet in that time. It's also worth noting that even Kamala wasn't planning to get rid of privatised healthcare.
That's because the majority of the democrats are also really right. As soon as a more left oriented candidate steps up, like Bernie Sanders, they're called a communist and people run to right oriented big corporate pawns instead.
The end candidates of the 2 parties (which is a dumb system itself) are a product of what the entire party chose to represent them. Maybe the situation this time is a bit different, with Biden stepping down and formally pushing Kamala forward, but Biden is also a product of the democrats. He was chosen to represent them. Biden is also right wing. Mildly compared to Trump, but strongly compared to what the rest of the world considers to be left. The entire states shifted further to the right. And never was left in the first place. I mean, slavery is still legal. Wtf.
The US is shifting further and further towards an autocratic state. Everyone claims it's the land of the free, chooses for leaders who will take away their freedom and then complain they aren't free anymore. Yeah, well, you get what you paid for. It's just fucked up the decisions these people made will fuck up a lot of people their lives. "I want all those other people to suffer, but I didn't think it would also harm me."
Kamala's campaign spent $1.5 billion.
This is the real election prize, not the presidency.
You don't know that he wasn't also doing it for his own personal pleasure.
This is a reason why I don't think the shooter did anything outside of act in self-defense.
Or possibly community defense.
We have class-action lawsuits, and self-defense as a legal defense against murder charges. In this case, a think we should combine the two into a "class-defense" legal doctrine.
Every hear of suicide by cop? Now hear me out, what if it wasn't a cop who pulled the trigger but just a regular person? Hmm...
Should Photoshop that coffee cup to get rid of cuckface crowder with D.D.D.
Fuck Matt Walsh.
Ok, carry on.
did you mean crowder?
Fuck 'em both but yeah this meme is Crowder.
Whoops. Yes. I did mean to say fuck Crowder. But fuck Walsh too.
He would have been safe in jail where he and his cohorts belong
It's cute that you think the justice system works the same for rich people like it does for the rest of us.
Believe.
If the blame is transitive based on who writes the rules then Voters have more responsibility than that CEO ever did.
I fail to see a definition of murderer that includes this CEO and doesn't include literally everybody. I mean how many future people do we all murder when we drive our cars or even order a package delivered. Unless you're just sitting in a corner eating rice and beans and washing it down with water, you've probably contributed to someone's death by now.
The real murderer is the capitalist US health care system, and that's still very much alive and well. This CEO's death is negligible compared to the problem, instead it's just a second problem.
It's the same mistake that all of society has made for about 5000 years now. Punishing individuals for preventable deaths that are caused by bad systems at best causes suffering for a steep cost and virtually no actual benefit while providing an opiate that keeps us from confronting the actual problem, and at worst actually contributes to those preventable deaths.
I fail to see a definition of murderer that includes this CEO and doesn’t include literally everybody.
The difference is that Brian Thompson was a willing participant and policy maker of an organization that had twice the industry standard of insurance denials (and therefore deaths). He was willingly participating and aiding in those killings, even if indirect.
Even something as simple as rice and beans can indirectly lead to the death of somebody, but the difference is that buying a bag of rice at the grocery store is something you are unwilling to do because you are forced to eat as a part of your physiology. By buying a bag of rice, you aren't enforcing a policy of deforestation or slave labor. Your only other option is to commit suicide to never burden anyone else for any resource ever again, but that very clearly isn't a morally correct option either.
So yeah, it's pretty easy to have a definition that includes the CEO but not everyone else, an intentional and willing killing of another person.
This CEO’s death is negligible compared to the problem, instead it’s just a second problem.
His killing has overnight launched a nationwide discussion about how bullshit the current system is. There is immense value in that. It ain't a problem.
Punishing individuals for preventable deaths that are caused by bad systems
This was an individual who helped make the system. Brian Thompson was directly responsible for it's creation.
while providing an opiate that keeps us from confronting the actual problem
This is backwards. Between the action itself and the national discussion, both the action and result directly confront the actual problem of oligarchs wielding unchecked power. They don't listen to begging for scraps.
So I see what you're saying, and of course there's ways to argue this killing could accomplish something good. But let me ask you this - based on the history of society and the typical results of assassinations, violence, and instability, what do you predict will actually change from this?
When I look at this, I see parallels to past emotional leftist movements like Occupy Wall Street and BLM, that did garner a lot of attention and lead to a lot of discussion, but in terms of policy change were only followed by political defeats for those movements. It seems to me that yes these movements get attention, but it's the wrong kind of attention.
This was an individual who helped make the system. Brian Thompson was directly responsible for it’s creation. Bro he's been CEO since 2021... You really think he created the entire system?
His killing has overnight launched a nationwide discussion about how bullshit the current system is. There is immense value in that. It ain’t a problem. Are there other ways to spark a discussion that don't involve murder? Better options that have an overall more beneficial outcome for everyone with less chaos and death? I think so.
If the public really wanted change they could've demanded it long ago. This is a democracy (even if FPTP is shitty). Why would you not vote for the party that wants to make healthcare more humane and instead vote the party and guy for president who's a public oligarch and thinks of the working class as beneath him.
Ethically the things Brian Thompson did were bad sure. But if he granted every healthcare request would the investors replace him? Most likely yes.
I believe you also cross a line when you argue that self-justice is right. Are rich people just gonna get murdered now since they're rich? Like bc the capitalistic system favours people that already have wealth? Where is the line. Can I now murder anyone I think is a bad person? I don't think this behaivor should be supported.
You don't even know the guy... you see him as a demonised person and now his family and friends have lost him for no real change to have taken effect. I just hope this discussion just simmer down and the public will ignore the issue again.
Who do you think designed the murdering, capitalist US health care system?
Lawmakers and the voters that demanded it
… Murdering capitalists?
Murder involves taking action IMO, denying payments is barely an action and perhaps even reduces the number of actions (depending on if it takes more steps to approve payment). The CEO was just encouraging death, a far more cowardly action.
"Officer, I didn't drive into the crowd of people, I simply took my foot off the brakes and steering wheel. That's barely an action! In fact, it reduced the number of actions."
What are you talking about?
100% gobbledygook, dude is talking in a circle and saying nothing
Except he promised people life saving treatment in exchange for payment up front, but when 16% of those people asked for the life saving treatment, he didn't deliver it.
false advertising and or homicide.
not murder.
That is horseshit for a very Important reason.
The CEO took action. He accepted payment. This was an active confidence scheme.
Take their money, promise to provide care through claim fulfillment when the mark inevitably gets sick.
When the mark inevitably gets sick, reveal the con, keep the money, let them die when you actively presented yourself as their sickness preparation.
Brian was a murderer. His murder weapon was snake oil, a false agreement.
Murder involves taking action IMO, denying payments is barely an action and perhaps even reduces the number of actions (depending on if it takes more steps to approve payment).
Bullshit. Inaction is still an action, and intentionally not providing life saving care is morally indistinguishable from killing them yourself when you have the means and ability to do so.
the degree of separation matters in my opinion, technically the insurance cannot prevent a patient from accessing healthcare, (in practice few have the money to pay out of pocket or fight a lawsuit with megacorps) health insurance never was about healthcare it's about insurance against costs associated with it.
The mental gymnastics you're performing should be in the Olympics
"I wasn't killing people, I was simply forcing the Irish to export all of their food to us. It's their fault they starved to death".
This is just wishy-washy moralism at play that only services to erase the real harm caused by systems perpetuated by bad actors like the CEO that got capped.
I'd say it's still murder, but passive rather than active.
Don't even say passive, it's plausible deniability at best - meaning a constructed, technical wall to point to and say, "whaa happened?" when shit goes bad.
Brian's job was simple, walk into a room each day and be asked a single question, "how many hammers do we make today?" His answer, without exception, was, "as many hammers as we're legally allowed to make". Then Brian goes home, well, second home as he was estranged from his wife and family and he took that drive home while drunk. He then likely ate a big ol' steak, had a massage and sex with an escort and continued drinking until he passed out, sleeping very well after a harmless day of deciding targets for hammer production.
In the meantime, those hammers were used predominately to bludgeon sick people to death while already actively suffering through the most painful, lowest moments of their lives - and the victim's families have to watch it slowly happen with nothing meaningful they can do.
But Brian was just choosing the number of hammers to make each day, right?
What a feckless, empty definition "taking action" is - you posting here was taking an action? Do you mean "pulling the trigger"?
So by your definition, Hitler and Charles Manson were not responsible for murders?
Hitler repeatedly called for the murder/extermination of others, Charles Manson shot someone resulting in their death.
Health insurance is merely a company, sure it is significantly worse and results in significant deaths when compared to a single payer system, however it is a capitalist solution to a capitalist healthcare system. Would you rather health insurance be outlawed with no replacement requiring every patient to pay out of pocket?
Health insurance accomplishes its task of making money precisely because it provides just enough value to the general public to not have riots/political action calling for its destruction.
sort of agree, but $>life gives them motive in my opinion. I'd still call it murder by definition.
