EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | CONTACT
News sites are reportedly having a hard time convincing their audience that they should care about the shooting of a health insurance CEO, with even rightwing pundits such as Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh failing to elicit a sympathetic response from their viewers.
Last week, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot on his way to an investors meeting by a person dressed in a hooded jacket. The assailant fled the scene, and Thompson was announced dead that morning.
As of writing, the assassin is still at large, though he has left a series of crypto clues that make his motive clear, including the words ‘Deny, Defend, Depose’, inscribed on the shell casings, and a stash of monopoly money in his backpack – which he obviously wanted the police to find.
‘Deny, Defend, Depose’ are alleged tactics insurance companies are accused of using to avoid paying claims, with UHC having the highest rate of denial for healthcare claims.
UnitedHealthcare is the most profitable health insurance company in the US, generating a combined net income of $22.3 billion last year alone. Like many other health insurance companies in the US, which are all privatised, UHC has profited from human offering and death.
In 2019, UHC implemented an AI program to automatically deny coverage to 90% of patients, which is alleged to have had a 90% error rate. A class action was filed in 2023 by families of patients who died as a result of this program.
It is unknown how many people UHC has indirectly killed by denying claims.
The murder has since created a massive disconnect between media giants and the general public, as the left and right finally find some common ground, and get one step closer to working out that the real enemy isn’t each other, but the 1% who profit from human misery.
More to come.
