the “healthcare” industry

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from quora: Susanna Viljanen
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Why aren’t more people showing empathy towards the UnitedHealth CEO who is as murdered? Why are people defending the suspect?

Because people in the US are sick and tired of the American profit-oriented health care and paying through the nose – and even more so with the insurance industry, which they see as a legalized racket.

What we know is that:

The murder is pre-meditated and definitely targeted. The murderer arrived with a bus which had left at Atlanta, GA, using a fake identity, and stayed in a hostel in NY, using another fake identity
He prowled the victim for ten minutes before shooting.

He used an unconventional weapon.
The casings found at the site were signed “deny”, “defend” and “depose”, referring to a book about abuses of the insurance industry
The murderer escaped just in a way we were taught in the military: leaving fake tracks, using multiple vehicles, using diverted routes. His tracks go cold in the Central Park.
His backpack has been found – full of Monopoly money

It’s been over three days now. It is likely his identity will never be resolved as the tracks have gone cold. He is most likely away from the NYC already – perhaps escaped abroad.
What we know also is that United HealthCare (UHC) has been the most ardent insurance company to reject insurance claims, and Brian Thompson has been suspected on fraud and insider trading. He has also implemented a deeply flawed AI to handle the insurance claims.

It is personal. My estimation is someone whose insurance claims have been rejected by UHC and who has a fatal disease – or a loved one of someone whose insurance claims have been rejected. He is not a professional, but likely to have previous gun handling experience and at least rudimentary experience on guerrilla warfare tactics. He has a sick sense of humour (the signed cartridges, the backpack full of Monopoly money) and he wanted to mock and harass both the medical insurance industry and NYPD. It is likely we will see similar antics in the next days.

I do not think the case is about a triangle drama – or a competiting insurance company. It may also be the murderer is a disgruntled employee of the UHC – someone thoroughly morally disgusted on being a part of what they see as a legalized racket. Who might want Thompson dead?

Anyone, who or whose loved one has died, become moribund, or left permanently crippled, or gone bankrupt due to rejected insurance claims. Any corporate employee, who is disgusted on working in a racket not unlike Mafia. Anyone, who is sick and tired by being screwed by the profit-oriented medical care and the legalized fraud of the insurance industry. Anyone, who has medical debt. Anyone forced to pay 10 to 100 times more of medicines than EU citizens – and does not have an access to Mexico or Canada for medicines. Anyone with a pre-existing condition. If we narrow down only to those whose claims have been turned down by UHC, we can narrow the pool of suspects down to 8.1 million people.

NYPD initially offered a 10,000 USD reward for any clues leading to apprehension. Now the reward has been raised to 50,000 USD – but the posters have been defaced and torn off. Seemingly the New Yorkers do not want the murderer to get caught.

Brian Thompson is seen as the bad guy. He implemented a deeply flawed AI to handle the insurance claims, rejecting one third of the claims, and it was found the AI got wrong in 90% of the cases.

But even worse and more unethical was found. The AI was found to be optimized to find cases where the company would gain the biggest profits by denying the claims and where the patient would be too weak to protest and raise a lawsuit against the company, and where actual immoral practices would produce an arbitrage. AI actually kills people. Brian Thompson has been seen as the guy who presses that black button which kills someone – and brings him million dollars.

Physical violence is the last resort of the poor and the downtrodden, and in a country so immersed in firearms, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. It happened sooner. I sincerely hope we will learn something from this.

The murderer is now fifth day on the loose. Each day means diminishing chances of him ever getting caught. It is likely he has already escaped the country and is out of the reach of justice – many countries refuse to cede wanted criminals in countries which have death penalty. Some 50% of all murders in the US go unsolved anyway.