Corporate Propaganda and The Death of Brian Thompson: A Response
In the wake of the murder of United Health CEO Brian Thompson, the New York Times (NYT) has come forth with a remarkable piece of propaganda designed to garner sympathy for Mr Thompson and his family. I, for one, find it very difficult to muster sympathy, good will and empathy for this ghoul who made billions of dollars in profit every year by denying health insurance claims.
Let us be clear: insurance is people paying into a pool of money, thereby reducing individual costs. The expectation is that they will receive part of that money back when they need it most. This good idea, when combined with the toxic profit motive, leads to companies denying claims. Why? Simple: paying out claims is a cost, and since profit equals revenue minus costs, the lower the costs, the higher the profit. This cretin, Thompson, increased his profit margins by denying people access to their own money which they had put aside for healthcare. My sympathy for this man is low.
The Public Reaction
The reaction of the people was not subtle. Indeed, it was simply brutal. Some of the highlights include
Thoughts and copays
Unfortunately thoughts & prayers are out-of-network
He died doing what he loved, not getting medical care in time
There are scores more of these, but you get the point: an unapologetic F this guy. As I said above, mustering sympathy for a man whose insurance company denied 32% of all claims it received in order to increase profits is something I am struggling with. To add my own humble contribution to this peasant pile-on, Thompson found out what it is like to have someone you’ve never heard of determine your fate. Bitch, isn’t it?
The Media Reaction: Corporate Propaganda, Part One
The NYT started it’s propaganda piece with a remarkable headline
Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows C.E.O.’s Killing
That headline is a great example of something Rome’s first Emperor, Augustus, was good at: you say something that is technically true, but leave out rather important details. The focus of the headline is not what an utterly evil and parasitic capitalist disease Thompson is, oh no. The focus is on the (admittedly brutal) public response. Left to the side is the context about the people he sacrificed at the altar of profit. Now, headline or not, the slant of the NYT is on glaring display here.
The pathetic defence of the corporate structure continues with this gem
The fatal shooting on Wednesday of a top UnitedHealthcare executive, Brian Thompson, on a Manhattan sidewalk has unleashed a torrent of morbid glee from patients and others who say they have had negative experiences with health insurance companies at some of the hardest times in their lives
Negative experiences with insurance companies? You mean they were refused access to their own money so a company could make ever more Holy, Sacred Profit? Also, you speak of ‘the hardest times in their lives’ – yes. That is what insurance is for. The insurance industry is perhaps best summed up by this pearler ‘the insurance industry is not in the business of paying claims. It is in the business of collecting premiums’. Amen. Finally, morbid glee? Nice rhetorical flourish there, but I see through it. This man was head of an insurance company that decided who lived and who died based on how much money it would cost the company. I think the public is quite within its rights to utterly decimate this man and laugh at his death.
The Media Reaction: Corporate Propaganda, Part Two
After noting that the motive for Thompson’s murder is not clear (again, technically true, but I think his job may have something to do with it), the NYT offers this brutal sentence
But that did not stop social media commenters from leaping to conclusions and from showing a blatant lack of sympathy over the death of a man who was a husband and father of two children
Oh cry me a river. How about garnering some sympathy for the thousands of individuals, who were also wives and mothers and sons and fathers, that Thompson is responsible for the deaths of? Why do they not count? They don’t advertise with your paper? Why are humanity and dignity given exclusively to the corporate CEO? The death of the CEO is a tragedy, the deaths of the thousands of people denied continuation of life because it costs money are called ‘cost saving measures’. The American motto e Pluribus Unum, meaning one from many, referring to the so-called melting pot of different people that make up America, is dead. It is most certainly dead, Jim. The rich matter, the poor do not.
The Media Reaction: Corporate Propaganda, Part Three
The NYT was hardly alone in its sycophantic, pandering slop in response to Thompson’s death. The following headline from The New Yorker aptly encapsulates the elite’s outrage at the peasants’ glee at the murder of this ghoul
A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing?
All that headline was missing was Greta Thunberg’s ‘HOW DARE YOU?’. That the media would rear up on its hind legs to defend the corporate structure is not news. What is news here is that the media is actually chastising the people for reacting with fitting glee to the death of this boil on the arse of humanity. This is the equivalent of blaming the victim of years of abuse when they finally fight back. How dare you hit your abusive partner after years of mistreatment? RUDE.
My response to this tone-policing crap can only partially be said on TV before certain times of day. The nerve of these rich, pampered, corrupt, profit-obsessed goons to band together and lecture the peasants for their reaction to this act is palpable. Also, what happened to the First Amendment? Free Speech? People are allowed to express dark opinions; yes, even about the corporate structure you love so much.
Conclusion: If Non-Violence is Impossible…
There is a saying around revolution, that if non-violent revolution is impossible, violent revolution becomes inevitable. This is not to justify violence, simply to say placing profits over the people while gloating insufferably about being the greatest country in the world was not a sustainable model. Eventually, your continued petulant demands that the status quo (from which you benefit handsomely) be maintained and that any and all calls for reform were Communism was going to blow up in your face.
I used to end posts on a blog some years ago with NVRN – Non-Violent Revolution Now. The corporate structure, with its childlike demands that ‘line on profit graph go up forever’ was going to eventually provoke some reaction. There simply are not enough circuses (and do not mention the price of bread) to keep the peasants fed and occupied anymore.
Choke, you greedy bastards.
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13 comments
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John Hanna -
Phil Pryor -
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leefe -
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Denis Hay -
Dr John Smith -
Andyfiftysix -
Clakka -
Jill Pagnoccolo -
Patricia
Return to home pageI agree wholeheartedly, they will however crucify the young man as an example to anyone else who dares to poke the monster.
There are, effectively, corporate murderers and these are out there, some of them unknowing, some scheming and plotting, whose decisions, policies, plans, orders, directions, attitudes lead to death and agony. History is cancered with evil types, politically mainly, but in other categories. e. g., BHP has caused death as had too many others by neglect, deliberate shorting of essentials and needs. So, this case under discussion will provoke plenty of for and against material on corporate action or lack of it. It is very relevant now, with ageing, climate change, refugee factors. Let us be open.
Exceptionalism…. how to become exceptionally rich by offering insurance policies that will never pay a claim, or if as a major corporation such as BHP you have enough friends in high place, probably including shareholders and investors, can become so exceptional that laws do not apply.
oh and talking about insurance, how is it that five years ago a vehicle listed at agreed price of $50,000 could be insured for $700, but today, the same vehicle, five years older, 200,000km on the clock valued at $23,000 costs over $1,000 to insure?
It’s a strange, strange world we live in Master Jack.
As CEO, Brian Thompson was clearly complicit in his company’s greedy disregard for those who suffered at the worst possible time of their lives. I can’t muster an ounce of compassion for his violent demise, not even a milligram.
The death of that hatefully elitist neoliberal capitalist, Brian Thompson, can be classified as “justifiable” and, indeed, supports the old adage: “What goes around, comes around” !! The fact that, even after death, Thompson continues to be exalted, protected and defended by the unspeakably depraved, lying, conniving Murdoch press, says EVERYTHING about Brian Thompson and NONE of it good!
The focus is on the (admittedly brutal) public response.
The public response is words. Thompson’s actions (and those of the entire industry he represented) were lethal to thousands of people and all just for money.
Which is really brutal?
As Mark Twain may or may not have said “I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
leefe, it’s a misattribution that the comment came from Samuel Clemens, the writer whose pen name you reference.
The original author was Clarence Darrow, the lawyer who is perhaps best known for his involvement in the “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925 in which he defended an educator for teaching evolution in a public school.
In his biography he wrote, “All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike someone they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.”
I agree with what this article is saying. However, this corporate greed is not confined to this health insurance company. It is heading this way here in Australia, also. It seems many insurance companies look for “loopholes” to deny claims. The annual insurance on my townhouse has increase substantially in the last few years, with a current $2000 dollar excess for an ordinary claim and a $5000 dollar excess if a tap hose caused water damage inside. So, it seems to me that most insurance companies just want your money and then go out of their way to find ways to make it difficult to make.
The quote that the insurance industry is not in the business of paying out claims, but the business of collecting premiums, is apt.
On the comment that this extreme corporate greed is not limited to ‘healthcare’, I agree completely. ‘Healthcare’ is just a symptom of the disease that is capitalism. Everything is about The Profits, and making that blasted line on the profit graph go up. It doesn’t matter who suffers, who is ruined, who is homeless or even who dies. Muh Profits.
F capitalism and everything it stands for
Dr John Smith. Its not capitalism’s fault. Its our fault for worshiping a false god. Capitalism is like all the other isms, it looks after itself in a way that aint good for us. We are not smart enough to join the dots…..it needs enforceable rules.
We need to shoot the first one occassionally. Thompson drew the short straw….
It’s not capitalism per se. Capitalism is the most efficient way of distributing capital as payment for goods and exertion. It’s corrupt politicians, criminals and greedy ethics-free corporates, bankers and their flunkies, along with the concealed feckless and immoral shareholders that stuff the system. A stuffed system, depending on context, that could rightly be called ‘suicide capitalism’ or ‘murderous capitalism’.
For ‘stuffing’ the system, revenge on United Health and the elimination of Thompson seems inevitable.
Such ‘stuffers’ will undoubtedly be wondering who’s next as they head for their sieges where together they will no doubt eat each other alive. Hope springs eternal.
Well said. I agree with all of it. F capitalism indeed. I don’t understand why anybody reads the NYT. Or any of the MSM anymore.
Thank you for writing what many are thinking.
The whole corporate remuneration system is wrong. Thompson’s remuneration, including bonuses and stock options, depended on increasing profits.
Last year he was paid US$10.2 million, and was worth an estimated US$43 million, he recently sold US$15 million in stock and it has been reported that under his leadership, the company’s profits rose to more than US$22 billion in 2023 from US$12 billion profit in 2021 when Thompson became CEO. That increase of more than US$10 billion over 2 years had to come from somewhere.
All insurance companies are predatory, and they all pay their senior management and board members tens of millions in remuneration, and that remuneration is dependent upon them denying claims, whether they be legitimate or not.
The insurance industry, and especially the health insurance industry, is not known as the Delay, Deny, Defend industry without good reason.