{"id":1707,"date":"2024-12-08T18:42:09","date_gmt":"2024-12-08T18:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1707"},"modified":"2024-12-08T18:42:09","modified_gmt":"2024-12-08T18:42:09","slug":"the-thompson-shooting-he-wasnt-the-real-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1707","title":{"rendered":"The Thompson Shooting — He wasn\u2019t the real target"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

Bryan Zepp Jamieson<\/i><\/p>\n

December 8th<\/sup> 2024<\/i><\/p>\n

There was something different about the Brian Thompson shooting. Assassinations (and this almost certainly was an assassination rather than a typical random murder) are not usually an accepted part of American life, even when the victims were wildly polarizing figures such as Huey Long, George Wallace, Ronald Reagan or Robert Kennedy. (The two exceptions were Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy, whose deaths were widely cheered in the South.)<\/p>\n

There have been the deaths of foreign leaders that met with widespread approval from the American public: Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin come to mind.<\/p>\n

Fame or infamy played a major role in such incidents, of course. But with Brian Thompson, fame wasn\u2019t a factor. Perhaps 1 in 20 Americans had even heard of the man before he got shot. Take the top 100 corporations in America, and the average person might be able to name five of the CEOs on that list.<\/p>\n

The corporation he ran, United Health Care, was the most notorious of the so-called \u201chealth care providers\u201d (they provide exactly no health care, but are simply a bridge troll between people and a human right), one with the highest denial of coverage rate in the country (32%, nearly a third of all cases they supposedly covered) and we knew it was widely hated, not just by its victims, but by friends, relatives and co-workers of those millions who suffered.<\/p>\n

UnitedHealth Group, an umbrella corporation that includes United Health Care, made $22 billion in profits in 2023. Revenues were $371.6 billion. United Health Care was roughly a quarter of that gaudy total. Remember, \u201cprofits\u201d don\u2019t include salaries (Thompson alone got over $10 million a year plus perks) or money spent fighting claims for denial of coverage and overcharging.<\/p>\n

Nobody makes $22 billion \u201cserving the public.\u201d The only way to make that kind of money is by robbing the public blind. In a vital and necessary public need like health care, a certain amount of viciousness is required. Denying claims supposedly reduces costs, but I can\u2019t help but wonder how much was spent on lawyers and lawgivers in order to fight resistance to those often-frivolous denials of necessary care. What is the ratio between pennies saved and costs of screwing the clients?<\/p>\n

Remember, in most countries, access to health care is considered a human right! Canadians complain about the cost and inefficiency of their system, but the per capita cost is about 62% of what Americans pay, and not only is it 100% coverage for everyone, but includes dental and vision and some mental health care.<\/p>\n

Actual medical providers\u2014you know, doctors, nurses, clinics, hospitals, rather than bridge trolls\u2014report that up to 40% of their expenses related to patient care come from filling out the endless and endlessly varying insurance forms and requirements, nearly all unique to each of the hundreds of bridge trolls, big and small, that stand between patients and care with their hands out.<\/p>\n

\u201cProfits\u201d also doesn\u2019t include the billions spent on lobbying against any sort of universal health care program, and paying to ensure that the legislatures are stuffed with well-paid toadies and cryptofascists dedicated to a land by the corporations, for the corporations, and of the corporations. The billions spent on advertising, lying to the people about how they only exist to help, are also deductible.<\/p>\n

Lying and cheating are standard business costs, you know. Thank lobbyists and Citizens United for that.<\/p>\n

Even with the improvements we saw under Obama and Biden, health care access in America is the worst in the developed world. Trump is vowing to eliminate Obamacare and Medicaid and Medicare, and if he pulls any of that off, health care in America will plummet below that in basket-case countries such as Somalia or Haiti.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but wonder how many voters voted for Trump, aware he wanted to get rid of the ACA and the government providers, but thought to themselves \u201cIt will save money and my health insurance will protect me.\u201d Ho, boy, are they in for a surprise.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bad, and it\u2019s going to get much worse, and most people are uneasily aware of that.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to Thompson. Now, for all I know, he was a fine family man, a good neighbor, and supported the local little league team and donated to the Salvation Army. Nearly all people have at least some redeeming features, after all. But he was solidly behind the most loathsome policies in an industry widely despised for such policies. He didn\u2019t inherit UHC\u2019s appalling numbers\u2014he created them, indeed, was on his way to a meeting to boast about them to inspire more of the same when he got shot.<\/p>\n

The media reacted with shock and outrage, and we heard the usual mewlings about the streets flooded with guns and random nuts and lack of Christianity that are always heard when someone gets shot in a newsworthy fashion (less than 1% of all shootings, granted). But that died away quickly when the response on social media made itself evident.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of reactions ranged between satisfaction to outright glee. UHC posted the usual \u201cshock and sorrow\u201d notice on Facebook, and within 24 hours had 55,000 \u201claughing\u201d emojis\u2014some 98% of the total responses. Hundreds of thousands of \u201cdenied coverage\u201d jokes flew around the blogosphere. The national consensus amounted to \u201cGood riddance to bad rubbish.\u201d There have been celebrity deaths that drew elements of derision and pleasure\u2014Michael Jackson, Andrew Breitbart, Antonin Scalia\u2014but they were famous in their own right. Brian Thompson was a relatively unknown personage. His death was cheered, not because of his individual presence, but because he represented what is arguably the most hated business sector in America. And that hatred is overwhelmingly widespread.<\/p>\n

Should Donald Trump\u2019s years of bad living catch up to him and they drag him away, face down, off the Fourth Green, millions will be dancing in the streets. Thompson\u2019s family should know he wasn\u2019t hated for the person he was like Trump is.<\/p>\n

But this Thompson shooting incident feels much less like another sad tale in gun-ridden American than it does what those in power most fear\u2014it felt like a SPARK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bryan Zepp Jamieson December 8th 2024 There was something different about the Brian Thompson shooting. Assassinations (and this almost certainly was an assassination rather than a typical random murder) are not usually an accepted part of American life, even when the victims were wildly polarizing figures such as Huey Long, George Wallace, Ronald Reagan or … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Thompson Shooting — He wasn\u2019t the real target”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,602,450],"tags":[325,2162,252,774,2164,2163],"class_list":["post-1707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-civil-war","category-health-care","tag-assassination","tag-brian-thompson","tag-health-insurance","tag-public-response","tag-shotting","tag-united-health-care"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Thompson Shooting -- He wasn\u2019t the real target · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1707\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Thompson Shooting -- He wasn\u2019t the real target · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bryan Zepp Jamieson December 8th 2024 There was something different about the Brian Thompson shooting. 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