Assassination of United Healthcare CEO

The first few weeks of December 2024 have been an awakening. Just one month after a grifter was elected president of the United States, the December 4th assassination of the United Healthcare CEO unleashed a rage brewing in the American psyche. In a country deeply divided by a pivotal election cycle, the bold morning murder of a shady CEO has united Americans in an existential furor.

This rage is unsurprising for anyone denied critical healthcare or receiving a bureaucratic runaround for essential treatment. The assassin’s celebration points to a righteous anger that demands candid conversations. At least three essential topics demand our collective attention:

1. Healthcare as a Right

The anger around our healthcare system is linked to a more profound intuition within us, demanding and pointing at what should be universally acknowledged as a right. We are born to live. And to live well, we need healthcare. Ideologically, our constitution speaks of the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These are meaningless fluff without access to the right to health and the ability to live with quality of life. Most people internally intuit or acknowledge this right to health.

However, Americans are NOT supported by national policies that ensure access to health care. After Obamacare required Americans to purchase health insurance, no corollary was needed for health insurance companies to pay for care.

Our recent collective memory still carries the threats from the global COVID pandemic. The idea of a universal American right to healthcare could have taken hold in 2020, near the pandemic’s beginning. This opportunity was squandered. Our elite political class is instead tied up denying care to trans people, reducing choices for women, and funding genocide abroad.

Ironically, in the “world’s richest country,” people who are required to pay into a health insurance system regularly go bankrupt from medical expenses while dutifully paying into the very system that denies life-saving care. Michael Moore recently made his 2007 movie Sicko freely available to the public. It gives insightful and relevant lessons on comparative health systems. There is no question that a better alternative is available. Poorer countries routinely do better with less resources.

2. Class Consciousness

This country is home to greater and greater income and wealth inequality. The extreme and obscene wealth of a select few shields them from the costs of daily life. This privileged group has the luxury of health care. Meanwhile, most Americans are one disaster away from financial ruin.

On the morning of December 4th, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was set to speak to his shareholders. This role requires sharing how his company would continue to forsake health for profit in the name of those very shareholders. In the face of extreme systemic poverty, this corporate greed and the political purchasing power of the elite are infuriating.

The pandemic began highlighting how American poverty exists for those who are tied up being “essential” expendable workers. The working conditions for these essential workers are at the heart of economic exploitation. This stratification is unhealthy for society and fuels the feelings of `us versus them.`

While Americans are spoiled by the cereal choices available at the grocery store, this is a shallow choice when the costs of living, rent, and daily expenses outpace income growth. There is an awakening of class consciousness as people struggle to survive.

3. Death by Bureaucracy

The words delay, deny, and depose were engraved on the bullet casings found at the site of the United Healthcare CEO’s murder. These words embody the tactics health insurers use to avoid payments for medical care. The practice is so well established there is a book on how to fight it. This bureaucratic practice is reminiscent of how large corporations fight off lawsuits by smaller parties. They send an army of lawyers to tie up small plaintiffs.

A South Park Clip on Healthcare paints a poignant picture of this indignation by bureaucracy. It is a slow and painful death by hundreds of paper cuts. This financial toxicity is studied and further reduces the years of one’s life. Those of us who are sick have to battle with such tactics while our quality of life slowly withers away.

We live in a system that is killing us by bureaucracy. To add insult to this slow death, there is increasing anger at the level at which computerized “intelligence” is making decisions on the questions of human life.

Demand Solutions

While Americans are obsessed with what is, we do not spend nearly enough time imagining what could be. It is difficult to find the space to dream when you are unsure if you can make rent.

Our American society condones using our tax dollars to incarcerate people of color instead of funding healthcare, education, and social services. This is a policy choice that undervalues life. Many systemic problems, such as poor public transportation, underfunded human services, and an overall disregard for the public good, have reduced the quality of American life. This collectively dehumanizes us and evaporates our capacity to fight back. Putting the pulse on the problem is just the beginning of demanding better.

Many other countries with smaller economies and lower GDPs do more with less. They make it a point to create viable social safety nets. Indeed, the growth of human potential requires the fulfillment of our basic needs as a prerequisite to enjoy liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Conclusions

Since my last post, I have struggled with the results of our November presidential election in the United States. On December 3, I had follow-up physical therapy for some ongoing wrist pain from my accident in May 2023. Last year, my insurance company did not cover physical therapy for both my broken limbs. I had to choose to work on either my leg or my wrist. Since I did not want to pay for more wrist PT out of pocket, I put off additional appointments then.

The following day, on December 4th, the United Healthcare CEO was assassinated in New York City. In targeting an elite figurehead of this healthcare problem, this assassin has done more to unite different parts of America than any politician, musician, or movement. The collective response has been righteous anger at healthcare companies.

Outside of the NYPD, it did not seem like anybody cared to see the CEO assassin caught. In New York itself, justice exists for the wealthy. Not long after the CEO assassination, another white male was acquitted of murdering a street performer on the subway.

The rallying call for healthcare is to Remember the 4th of December. It represents a universal acknowledgment of the right to health, an awakening of class consciousness, and a protest against death by bureaucracy.