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@pluralistic has great thoughts about the recent murder of #UnitedHealthCare #CEO #BrianThompson and how they relate to a story he wrote a while ago:
pluralistic.net/2024/12/09/radβ¦
However, #Anthem's retreat from changing how anaesthesia is billed, was one a rare "Enemy of my enemy" moment.
In this piece:
vox.com/policy/390031/anthem-bβ¦
@Vox explains how "[the] policy would not have increased costs for their enrollees...it would have reduced payments for some of the most overpaid physicians in America."
A big insurer backed off its plan to pay less for anesthesia. Thatβs bad.
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield tried to impose claim limits on anesthesia. Following the killing of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, a populist uproar forced Anthem to reverse that policy.Eric Levitz (Vox)
"the assassination of #BrianThompson is a wake-up call, a warning that if we don't solve this problem politically, we may not have a choice about whether it's solved with violence. As a character in "#Radicalized" says, "They say violence never solves anything, but to quote The Onion: that's only true so long as you ignore all of human history"
@pluralistic
#luigimangione
This week @pluralistic wrote this article, in response to the murder of #BrianThompson and the clear similarity of this situation to his _Radicalized_ short story (2019).
Years ago, Doctorow was wondering at the fact angry gunmen, frequently made financially desperate because of denial-of-care industries like #ForProfitHealthInsurance, somehow don't turn that rage against the industry profiting from their suffering:
βThis is an industry that is practically *designed* to fill the people who interact with it with uncontrollable rage. I mean, if you're watching your wife or your kid die before your eyes because some millionaire CEO decided to aim for a $10 billion stock buyback this year instead of his customary $9 billion target, wouldn't you feel that kind of murderous rage?β
The violent response to #BrianThompson, a CEO who profits obscenely from the torment and suffering of millions of customers.
It didn't need to happen. Those CEOs have had plenty of warning that oppressed people will be pushed only so far before seeking a violent response.
The title short story from collection _Radicalized_, by @pluralistic, details how people are corralled by the physical suffering of family members, exploited by an insurance industry deliberately designed to extract wealth while denying health care, and finally resort to violent terrorism in the absence of any other effective option.
CEOs have had this, and for decades many other, warnings that they must stop the ghoulish practice of denying health care to those who need it, while extracting wealth. A reckoning is coming.
#EndWealthCare #HealthCareIsAHumanRight #PolicyFailure #Radicalized
He who plunders with a little boat is a pirate; he who plunders with a fleet is a conqueror
He who kills one person with gun is an assassin; he who kills thousands with systemic rejecting claims to health care is a CEO
#BreakingNews
apnews.com/article/manhattan-sβ¦
#USNews #BrianThompson #UnitedHealthcare #News
UnitedHealthcare CEO shot, killed outside NYC hotel, AP source says
New York Cityβs police commissioner says the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was a βbrazen, targeted attack.β Jessica Tisch made the comments during a news conference Wednesday.JAKE OFFENHARTZ (AP News)
