UnitedHealthcare CEO shot and killed in NYC

We've had enough reporters and media personalities targeted over the years to where I was glad to be Mr. Anonymous in public, let alone a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I never wound up in a work situation where I felt I was in danger but there are 400 million guns out there. Even if it's not Mark Chapman, if someone wants you dead and sends a professional hitman, that's a scary step backwards in our society.

If I was a member of the 1 percent, this would be a huge eye-opener. Does everyone with a huge paycheck need a 24/7 armed security detail rather than just living in a gated community? What's keeping someone from offing Juan Soto, for example, because they lost a bet on the World Series? Hell, some kid shot Ricky Pearsall in downtown San Francisco over his watch.

We take a lot of personal freedom for granted, including the right to not have to confront armed gunmen. This is a story that sounds like it might have happened in Bogota or Medellin, not Manhattan. And the public response is frighteningly horrific. This is a man who was murdered because of what he did for a living, and we don't have any idea who wanted him dead.

"But my health insurance premiums!"

 

I don’t like that he was murdered. I will not grieve for someone who got rich knowing he was consigning people to die.

 

No idea. Didn't watch it. I was just thinking about the repeated jams.

 

Years and years ago, at my first job out of college, I wrote a controversial column. I got a few death threats over it. I got booed when I walked into a local watering hole. I honestly didn't think much of it then. I would feel much differently if I got death threats today.

One of my first thoughts after this story broke is that it's going to be a big boon for private security companies. A bunch of high-paid CEOs are going to be getting body guards. I'm sure that expense will also be passed on to the consumer.

 

With a sound suppressor, from the looks of it.

 

It’s sad that we live in a country where this guy is murdered over what we assume is healthcare.

Murdered over healthcare.

Not drugs. Not fucking the wrong person. Not mental health.

Healthcare.

 

On a trip to Paris last year I passed through the area where beheadings were carried out during the French Revolution. I was reminded that the wealth disparity that triggered the French Revolution wasn't even close to the wealth disparity we have now.

I think it would probably be to society's benefit if a few Elon Musks got their heads sliced into a basket. It won't happen, of course, because the French public has a level of self-respect that Americans will never comprehend.

This guy wasn't Elon Musk. He was just a guy who led a corporation whose business model is to take thousands of dollars from you every year with the promise of covering your medical treatment, then refusing to cover that medical treatment because your death will benefit the shareholders.

I'm certainly not going to cheer his death, particularly since we don't know the motivation just yet. But I'm not going to clutch my pearls much. It's a shame we'll never know if his insurance would have covered gunshot wounds, or if they would have rejected the surgery as unnecessary.

 

Just wait until they get going on this.


Donald Trump is ready to make Republicans touch the third rail
Without a voting public to face again, Trump is gearing up to cut Social Security and Medicare



https://www.salon.com/2024/12/04/donald-is-ready-to-make-touch-the-third-rail/

 

If that was somebody with a silencer using sub-sonic rounds, he probably mapped out his escape route really, really well.

 

Excuse my ignorance -- it is near-total when it comes to gun operation -- but what is limp-wristing and why is it of particular note with a .380?

I looked up limp-wristing and think I understand it, but...

 

And Trump, et al, want to make it even worse, more difficult and more expensive for regular people.