The media and some elected officials are slapping the noses of people like me- the people who absolutely feel zero empathy for Brian Thompson- the CEO of United Healthcare and I could careless.
Under Brian Thompson’s leadership, UHC was hit with a suit that claimed the company illegally deployed “artificial intelligence (AI) in place of real medical professionals to wrongfully deny elderly patients care owed to them under Medicare Advantage Plans by overriding their treating physicians’ determinations as to medically necessary care based on an AI model.”
The suit also claimed the company knew this model “has a 90% error rate.”
In other words Brian Thompson made a fortune and I mean a literal fortune by taking money from people for services that he had ZERO intentions of providing.
Thompson’s net worth was approximately $43 million, according to Wallmine, per Daily Beast. Wallmine reported that Thompson’s net worth allegedly included over 72,000 units of UnitedHealth Group stock, valued at around $42.9 million, and stock options that were worth over $21 million. The Daily Mail reported that Thompson earned around $10 million per year with his salary at United Healthcare.
Brian Thompson was a well kept man.
” Jacob Marley “
A Christmas Carol
1951
When he he was gunned down in cold blood, I felt zero sympathy for Brian Thompson.
There is something obscene about a person who would take money from someone and then literally tell them to F#$@ and Die- but that’s what he did. He’s like a drug dealer , but at least- at the very least- the drug dealer comes across with the product when you cross their palms with silver.
When I think of Brian Thompson and the people like him, I think of people who are facing catastrophic health issues and how you can find story after story where people are on the phone with their ( ha ha ‘their’ ) insurance company trying to find out if they have coverage- or begging for it and when I think of them I think of Jacob Marley.
” Jacob Marley “
A Christmas Carol
1951
In A Christmas Carol Marley appears to Scrooge Marley is chained to his money boxes by heavy and ponderous chains, he is in torment- there is nothing he can do to free himself of his chains and there is nothing he can do to change the misery he brought into the world.
It’s my sincere wish, in keeping with the season- that Brian Thompson and the people like him are chained to their money boxes and that they will spend eternity dragging them over the Earth- that they find no peace, that they find no rest.
That is why I don’t care about what happened to Brian Thompson, nobody should die in fear- but I do believe if you’ve done your best to usher fear and death, misery and despair into the lives of other people- and made them literally pay you for the pleasure, you have lost your humanity and you are in no position to have anyone on your behalf demand it from me or anybody else.
Australia had the same problem with social security benefits. Many people were told to pay back thousands, there were needless suicides and stress.
Finally the government admitted that there were high errors and stopped the AI system. The people involved didn’t get more than a slap on the wrist and told to sit in the corner
Can’t argue with anything you’ve said.
An undiscussed theme of economic analysis is that an excessive concentration of wealth gives way to class warfare. The poorer with guns against the uber rich with body guards. If you read the history of the Great Depression, American politicians from Roosevelt on down were concerned about the risk of revolution. The memory of Russia in 1917 was still relatively fresh. There is no collective memory of that now although some cognoscenti relate the threat and the weakening of republican forms of government to the rise of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. The uber rich in Germany counted on the Nazis to suppress the Communist threat and thought they could manage Hitler. Didn’t work out that way, but most of the uber rich did relatively well in WW2. Most of the major German brands that we have today — Mercedes, Bayer, etc. — prospered under Hitler.
Could the same happen here? Of course it could.
There are at least two groups who want to see massive violence:
1. Religious extremists who believe that a catastrophe will bring the coming of a messiah.
2. Technocrats who believe the project that 50% of US adults will be jobless and unemployable by 2050. Restricting access to healthcare and killing people eliminates a huge financial burden. However, the people rooting for this aren’t empaths, to say the least.
Of course, the lesson of both the French and Russian revolutions is that the people advocating for violence will also become victims of that violence.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
You speak for many, Anita!