I’ve been reading a lot about the early Wednesday morning murder of the CEO of United Healthcare who was killed while walking into a shareholder’s meeting at a New York City hotel.
Although things are still fresh, details aren’t fully known and, as I type this, the killer is still at large, it would appear that this was very possibly a targeted attack by someone who may have affected by the private healthcare firm with the highest rate of claim denials to insured clients of any company in the US.
One comment in a Reddit thread stood out to me talking about how “maximize growth at all costs” MBA mentality infects, not only the CEOs but also others who are in senior management/middle management roles and rewards those who are most willing to buy into things that fuck people over. This is bad enough in private enterprise but doubly so in sectors (like healthcare) which should have no profit motive at all (and doesn’t in 99% of the developed world.)
Ironically, nurses – who possibly have the darkest humour of any profession alive – were right on top of this news.
This will probably get me on a list but given the prevalence of guns in the US, the wealth inequality, the polarized politics, I’m actually shocked this hasn’t happened before (were the two assassination attempts on Trump during the election campaign part of the same trend?) and/or that it hasn’t happened more where rich and powerful are targeted by disgruntled staff and clients.
