Prosecutors in New York City have charged 26-year-old Luigi Mangione with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione was arrested in a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Charges include second-degree murder and illegal possession of a firearm.
Whether Mangione is the right person remains to be seen. What is undeniable is that the killing of the pig CEO has resulted in an eruption of righteous class hatred across the country. The masses are disgusted by the obscene profits of the health insurance industry – profits that come from DENYING health care, not from providing it.
Last year, UnitedHealthcare had a net income of $22.3 billion. Apologists in the media have been quick to point out that record profits across the industry are partly the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but that does not change the underlying dynamics of the for-profit health care system.
To that point, a recent study by the Yale School of Public Health and other groups found that universal health care in the U.S. would have saved 212,000 lives and $459 billion in 2020 when COVID-19 was raging. Insurance companies that lobby against universal health care know very well that this system kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. All the executives have blood on their hands.
Insurance companies (not to mention private hospital shareholders) are out to make money, first and foremost, not provide care. They make their money by fleecing workers already squeezed by high housing costs and low wages.
Speaking of the pandemic, that experience showed that workers, not CEOs, are essential, including in health care. What could possibly justify the bloated salaries and bonuses of people like Thompson?
Not surprisingly, politicians have been weighing in to defend CEOs. Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz – who is governor of the state where UnitedHealthcare is headquartered – called the shooting of Thompson “horrifying news and a terrible loss for the business and health care community.”
Apparently, this killing is beyond the pale for Walz, even though Kamala Harris, as part of the Biden administration, is complicit in the murder of tens of thousands of people in Gaza, many of whom are children. Where’s Walz’s outrage about kids slowly starved to death or burned alive? For the Democratic Party’s leadership, ruthless CEOs’ lives matter, but not those of innocent children.
Working people seem to feel differently. It is not just the “radical left” who agreed that the corporate parasite was running a criminal operation, putting profits before people, not to be mourned. Many moderately progressive people have joined in, as well as ordinary people on the right, much to the chagrin of the pundits.
Right-wing influencers Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh have faced backlash from their followers after condemning the “radical left” for not denouncing the killing of Thompson. As Newsweek reported, “Their followers disagreed with their criticisms and defended the left, arguing that they felt the same way about Thompson’s death and bashing Shapiro and Walsh for being ‘out of touch’ as wealthy media personalities.”
Here are a few comments quoted in the Newsweek article:
“I’m a Republican. I voted for Trump. I am unsubscribing from Ben. They are not like us.”
“Ben’s net worth is around $50,000,000.000. He is a peer of Brian Thompson not one of us, the average American citizen.”
“[Shapiro is making] money by generating hate and division.”
This goes to show that even working-class people who have been taken in by the lies of rich scam artists like Trump are capable of realizing where their true interests lie, and it’s not with the rich.
If Shapiro and Walsh are misleading people about CEOs, isn’t it possible that they’re lying about immigrants and trans people? Isn’t it possible that they’re lying about climate change and the evils of socialism?
And what about Donald Trump? Isn’t he like Brian Thompson? He’s what Gen Z calls a “nepo baby,” a nepotism baby who comes from generational wealth. He inherited wealth from his father, Fred Trump, a New York City real estate gangster. Now, he has the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, at his right hand and a cabinet of billionaires. As of Dec. 10, the total net worth of the billionaires in the Trump administration equals at least $382.2 billion – which is more than the GDP of 172 different countries.
Isn’t it possible that Trump is not really interested in combating elites but instead wants to give those elites more wealth and power? Just food for thought.
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