CEO of UnitedHealthcare fatally shot outside of NYC hotel, source says
Remember this?
UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-fatally-shot-nyc-hotel-police-say-rcna182789Open linkView original on lemmy.world866
Comments435
Locking. About 50 reports. I'm a volunteer, and don't have enough time for this.
"calls for violence in any form against any living creature" are a violation of lemmy.world terms of service. Comments calling for or celebrating violence will be removed, and may result in additional moderation actions
Being happy and calling for it are different
thin line. many people got sent to jail in England for celebrating too enthusiastically online during the anti-immigrant riots. the internet today isn't the same as the internet 15 years ago
the rules aren't because the mods care very much. the rules are so than the website doesn't get taken down and/or the owners/maintainers aren't subject to serious legal penalties
The only thing I ever saw about people online being sent to jail were these two .
So if you consider that 'too enthusiastic' I uh... have a different definition of that.
Depends on where you live. There's a very similar case in Germany from 2 years ago compared to what's going on now.
In Germany a cop was murdered and someone posted on Facebook: "Not a single second of silence for these creatures."
The courts have ruled that even "liking" a comment/post like that could be a crime.
https://winfuture.de/news,131418.html
Edit: since the post is locked...
Ah, sorry about that, I figured that you would use some translator tool on it if you wanted to verify my source.
I ran it through a few different ones but DeepL seemed to handle it best:
::: spoiler Tap for full translation.
Court rules that likes on social media can already be a criminal offense
Social media has been nothing new for a long time, yet courts are still dealing with issues related to it. Or rather: hate speech is and remains a huge issue. Now comes a question: is a simple "like" already punishable?
Yes, at least according to the Meiningen Regional Court. In a recently published decision, the regional court found that even a like can be a punishable offense. Specifically, this is the case if the liked post contains punishable content.
The case in question is the double murder of a police officer in the district of Kusel at the beginning of the year. At the time, a hunter and poacher reacted to a vehicle stop with lethal force. The crime was also a major topic on social media, with an overwhelming majority of people expressing shock at this double murder.
But not exclusively: one Facebook user wrote in a post "Not a single second of silence for these creatures". At least one user liked this post and for the Meiningen public prosecutor's office this was already a criminal offense (it is not known whether and how the original author is being investigated, but it can be assumed).
According to the Berlin criminal and media lawyer Ehssan Khazaeli, who was commissioned by the accused, the Facebook user had "made himself liable to prosecution both for denigrating the memory of deceased persons under Section 189 StGB and for rewarding and approving criminal acts under Section 140 StGB", as the lawyer writes in a blog post (via Tarnkappe).
Is a "like" already "condoning"? An extensive search was carried out against the person who pressed the "Like" button, and the authorities gained access to the accused's home, vehicle and cloud storage. Khazaeli criticized the decision: "By liking a post, it remains clear that it is the post of another person - there can be no question of 'taking ownership'," said the lawyer.
Khazaeli went on to say that a like is not a "personal mental statement", and certainly not an endorsement of a crime. "The post is linked to the culture of mourning and the funeral service for the two police officers, not to the murder as such. You can and should find that distasteful, but it is not relevant under criminal law," says Ehssan Khazaeli.
The lawyer intends to lodge a constitutional complaint against the decision in the coming months: "It's not about the individual case, but about the fundamental question of whether simply liking something on social media can be a criminal offense." :::
I don't speak German, but it sounds like what happened is that a lawyer pointed out that liking that post could be illegal under new laws, and is trying to get it struck down. So yes 'could' is carrying a lot of weight in this case.
And to be clear I'm as left as possible and anti-authoritarian, I just fail to see how being a massive racist and calling for people to be killed (and how to hide your identity, in posts following it) and then forwarding those messages to the police is somehow a Big Brother situation.
there were 6 arrests for social media crimes, including the one for the woman who actually kicked off the protests by sharing a fake name about the kid who attacked the concert
but that's beyond the point. let's look at the comment for Kay, one that you mentioned, that caught a sentence of 38 months
that's the portion that says he "called for hotels to be set alight"
see, to my interpretation he was saying "i would not care if they set fire to the hotels". in the US, this would be very strongly covered under free speech. why? because it's an opinion. in the US you can say "I believe that [xyz] should happen" and that is a belief. an opinion- something that cannot be censored. in the UK, not so much. but even in the US, you could be held legally responsible in some way depending on the interpretation of the law
and likewise, the platform hosting that controversial speech can face legal consequences. from serious fines to potentially even criminal charges depending on the enthusiasm of the government. (governments that are getting progressively more authoritarian and trigger-happy the world over)
the point I was trying to convey is that a website like this instance of Lemmy or any other must follow rules in order to stay out of legal hot water. how can you fault them for that?
if you believe this is not the correct thing to do, then you can pay money to host a website and then you can put your ass in front of the ringer to handle potential legal consequences for not doing your part to stop it. i don't fault the mods in the slightest.
just for reference though, let's compare and contrast the comment that got Kay arrested and put in jail and then some comments in this thread
a lot of comments in this thread are being deleted, let me see if i can catch some before they are deleted
using the same level of scrutiny, each one of these comments could justify a sentence in the ballpark of 38 months like what happened with Kay
this is what i mean. the internet today is changing and social media admins need to change with the times or the hammer of the law can screw them. users here spamming about mod abuse do not fully understand
He also said "every man and his dog should smash [the] f*** out of Britannia hotel (in Leeds)", then he took his posts and:
He didn't just go to jail for a couple posts, he made a bunch of them and then after being warned they were illegal forwarded them to the police.
This guy is a dangerous if moronic racist, and really only has himself to blame.
You're talking about being 'silenced' as if it's being done by some monolithic organization; it's not a government action, they can make whatever rules they want. You are free to make your own instance with your own rules.
That is an assertion that I highly doubt and I while at first glance your comment seems well enough thought out, I actually don't see a lot to support the assertions made.
You are advocating for literally "Obeying in advance" to authoritarian regimes on a left leaning decentralized social media network.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/obeying-in-advance
You're making a good case for free speech absolutism.
Name a lemmy instance that was taken down because people expressed happiness at corporate shill executions. Heck, name any shut down by a government entity for anything.
Spare me, they're being way more liberal with comments on Bluesky and they are far bigger than Lemmy.
You and the mods just want to protect rich people from group consensus about them being terrible.
Your paranoia about a slippery slop to violence is very transparent.
England stands only with authoritarian governments with wrong think.
Being happy and celebrating are not so different.
I posted in c/news about the mods being overzealous in deleting posts in these threads, and it was deleted for rule 6. Fair enough. However, I have looked over the modlogs for the post regarding this shooting and the number of posts that are being deleted for relatively innocuous comments is excessive.
Being happy a bad person got shot is not : Glorifying Violence, Celebrating Violence, nor Inciting Violence.
More over, If this were someone like Kim Jong-Un, or Putin who had been shot, I find it hard to believe the mods would be nearly so overzealous to delete comments saying in essence "good, he had it coming".
I don't think the mods are intentionally skewing the conversation as much as they have an unexamined bias.
It is okay for people to be happy a bad thing happened to a bad person. Other people are okay to disagree with this statement. Let the discussion (within reason) happen. If you aren't prepared to moderate a discussion, turn off comments on your magazine.
Super disappointed mods can't parse people not being surprised or feeling something was deserved as a consequence of their actions, and advocating the violence.
My comment that got removed was "can't imagine why this happened", which neither calls for, nor celebrates violence, but expresses that the conditions leading to such an action, in our dystopian US are predictable, have happened before countless times in history all over the world.
The inability to acknowledge the fault of the powerful actors and system that created such conditions and utter lack of consequences for the rich and powerful in the US are what caused such responses for an agreeably horrific act. The issue that won't go away, on Lemmy or anywhere else, and oversimplifying the above to "advocating violence" is disingenuous if deliberate, and idiotic if accidental.
Any living creature can't be the standard. That's just absurdly Broad. By this argument you can't have cooking communities. In any form against any living creature? I can't cut down a tree on this website apparently.
I used bleach on my countertops this morning killing millions of bacteria. Put me in Lemmy Jail.
Did you read this comment or apply any thought before you hit post? "Against any living thing" is so hilariously broad it makes me wonder if you're just trolling.
He's not a living creature anymore.
Lol
How was my comment about jury nullification against tos?
It is interesting. Calls for violence are against the TOS. There is actually nothing in the TOS or the sidebar rules about "Celebrating Violence".
I mean that is fine and all, and frankly it is a good policy. Just kinda bad form to be deleting so many posts for something that isn't in the TOS.
Seems the mods have added additional interpretations to the TOS and then used that as justification to delete a whole lot of the conversation.
Anyways. I like violent video games. Is that celebrating violence, how about football? Can I like football here?
Wish I would have known how over zealous .world moderation was gonna be when I signed up. Go take a nap for a couple days.
Uncritical support for AIDS as the immune system is responsible for the deaths of millions of bacteria every day.
I completely understand the "calling for violence" part of the rules. The celebrating part is a bit much, though.
💦😋🥾💦
I think something had to die for my turkey sandwich, and I would kill again for another.
I hope you step on a Lego.
CEOs have not been held accountable for their actions by the legal system. This is inevitable with the way the United States is set up
If this happens to two or three more CEOs over the next couple of months, they'll change their position on gun control, not change their behaviors that made somebody do this. And "they're coming for our guns" morons would find a way to not only excuse it, but fully support it, at least at first.
If this happens to multiple CEOs, companies will just implement secret-service style security for the C-suite. Wouldn't even be a rounding error in CEO compensation.
We really are just a few years away from Cyberpunk, aren't we? I'd actually say a mix of both that, and Cloud Atlas' last timeline.
Nah, the US will just provide secret service details to any and all C level execs.
I mean having to live in a fortress and being afraid to go into a coffee shop without armed guards is no way to live... it wouldn't be a fun time for those poor, sociopathic bastards. But I guess having those extra digits in their bank accounts makes up for it?
they legit just send out the interns to go get coffee, so much that it's a trope at this point. these people barely raise their own fucking kids, they don't give a shit about any of those like, minor pleasures. they have cocaine, and other rich people who are constantly willing to kiss each other's ass in a big circle, human centipede ouroborous style.
Living in fear with constant security has to be better than just treating people better, right?
They have the money to hire a 24/7 coffee shop on their private island. I don't think it's so bad for them.
they already do that shit. elon already has a pretty big security retinue and his ass almost never goes out in actual public anymore, only ever hosts private events with verified people and pretty good security. most CEOs and billionaires aren't gonna be that paranoid, but most of them don't have to be, and they already tend to live in totally different contexts than your average person.
what I'd be more interested in knowing is how this guy figured out that this particular guy was going to be outside this particular hotel at this particular time. this wasn't a crime of pure opportunity, this was something which seems like it was probably planned in advance. if it was publicly accessible where this guy was going, that's a much easier and cheaper thing for businesses and CEOs to solve, and is probably the most important part of this kind of security.
Sounds like the miserable existence they deserve.
Absolutely this, this is a nucleation point for disarming the citizenship. Step one for a dictatorship.
NYS has already done this, by and large.
No, I'm talking more like this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_argument
It's actually pretty easy to get a pistol in New York State as long as you get proper training and register it. Also the NYC pistol ban was struck down a couple years ago.
I'm more worried about a federal gun ban that the Trump administration can use violence like this as a justification.
Say what? Nearly every CEO who is willing to talk about firearms is already pushing for more Gun Control with both their words and their money. The obvious exceptions are of course Firearm CEOs and maybe Elon Musk.
Seriously, have you ever looked at whose funding all of the Gun Control efforts and Politicians in this country? It's a veritable whose who of Democrat Billionaires and CEOs.
NYS already banned suppressors for the plebes. Only cops can buy them in NYS. And its highly unlikely they had a NYC permit, for carry, only cops get easy NYC permits, and also C execs like this guy who pays off the right people, in the correct amounts.
So, this means, it must have been a cop that did the shooting. Because it could have been an oligarch with the legal gun, but they couldn't get a suppressor in NYS.
You can make a pistol suppressor from seamless tubing and steel wool, threaded barrels are not uncommon or controlled. You’ll be missing the booster needed for reliability, and it’s not going to be very good, but expansion chamber volume is expansion chamber volume. Reportedly the shooter had more than one malfunction, which lends credence to a DIY can, or a shitty gun.
If the goal is murder, another +15 years for NFA violations isn’t a big deterrent.
you could probably 3d print a booster, and use a spring, I bet. it wouldn't be reliable since it'd get hot, but I don't think there would be too big an issue with too high of pressures or anything causing it to break. alternatively, you could just go with something that doesn't use a tilting or rotating or locking barrel mechanism, like a steyr GB, or even just a hi-point, which I think is just straight blowback.
you'd also probably wanna go with a mainly wipe-based suppressor rather than one with just baffles, since you're making something that's basically disposable anyways, and those can fit into smaller packages while being more effective than something with baffles.
Hell at that point you could pretty easily just 3D print the whole gun. It won't live through more than a round or two, but if that's all you need it for?
this is potentially true, though if there's any flexion or breakage in the 3d print material, you'd probably some underpressure in the cartridge, not that such a thing would matter much, or a more troubling lack of accuracy, which may be significant even at this distance, but probably not. both especially if you're not using hardware store parts. at a certain point, you do just kind of get into shinzo abe doohickey territory, with that sort of a thing, maybe easier just to use a couple pipes. on that note, you could also conceivably use a wipe-based suppression system with a classic hardware store four winds shotgun, OR a contained gas firing system, if you're going the probably over-complicated 3d printing route, especially if you avoid some larger pressures which are probably unnecessary.
you really don't need any advanced rifling or superior ballistics or anything, at the distance this guy was at. he could've even just used a knife, or a brick, or his hands, to be honest, especially since the CEO was not dressed in ballistic armor or protected in really any way. though I imagine the public would be somewhat less sympathetic to those methods since they're seen as kind of brutal or psychotic, even if they have the same end result.
they'll just define "our" as "voted republican" - EZ Clap
So then just buy illegal guns to carry out your crimes. Problem solved.
Are you under the impression that pro2a people are corporate shills? Lol the fuck
It's funny you think they're not. They've been dick-riding manufacturers and lifestyle companies for decades. How much "Glock" or "Mossberg" merch have you seen out there? Those are eager corpo shills.
Glock and Mossberg are gun manufacturers, not health care providers...the fuck
I implore you to learn about the history and funding of the NRA.
Lol I know exactly who pays into the NRA, they're just corporate shills now nothing more. They don't do shit for gun rights and most gun owners want them to desolve.
They are inadvertently. Corporations say the right words and the pro2a people fall in line. Look at all of the millions of citizens that voted directly against their best interests in November because they've effectively been fed messages that made them disregard what actually effects them. Obviously not all pro2a people are in this camp, but there's a lot of overlap between those folks and people getting manipulated by other rich and powerful forces.
Most pro2a people vote repub because they're the only ones that remotely say anything pro2a even though they're completely shit at it. Almost all gun owners are single issue voters. If the dems dropped the anti gun rhetoric they'd sweep elections.
as a hobby, it's basically just another form of consumerism, and the culture surrounding it is not unlike that of car culture, with the same purported values. freedom, agency, maintaining control over your own life, it's all just marketing speak to drive customer traffic, and ends up being politicized only really insofar as everything must exist inside of a political context.
there are definitely advantages to having guns for certain populations, certainly, marginalized populations that are already at risk, but those populations already have more prevalent firearms use for obvious reasons, and would probably maintain higher firearms use rates regardless of legality as a result of their marginalization, where more strict gun laws won't really factor in, or rather, would be just another meaningless slap-on charge to extend sentencing.
most of your other actual pro2a people are gonna by random hobbyists, hunters, and fudds, who can't really be expected to put up any organized resistance against anything, and the other half are people who would already be a fan of any plan to march around and take away other people's guns, because they're ex-military chuds, or cops, or what have you.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Hopefully this makes all those money grubbing assholes consider how many of the millions of people they've fucked over have access to firearms and their location.
There's an interesting book called Narconomics: How to run a drug cartel that goes into detail about why there's so much violence in the drug world. It all comes down to there not being a legal system where people can peacefully resolve disputes.
If Pepsi stole Coke's formula and brand name, Coke would sue them. But if a rival cartel infringes on your territory, you have no choice but to get to murdering.
Now, I don't know the motivations of why this healthcare CEO was shot - and I don't condone violence. But I will say that I see some strong parallels where it feels hopeless from a consumer point of view when dealing with insurance companies. The whole process, including the legal system, seems tailored to take away your power. So I'm not at all surprised that violence has occurred.
Good thing he had health insurance for his stay at Mount Sinai; some aren't so lucky thanks to worthless puddles of filth like this.
Edit: Zero sympathy. Negative sympathy, even.
Link above to ARS Technica article titled: UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges.
Are they sure it wasn't a pre-existing condition?
It should go without saying that such violence is not good and not supportable.
That said, I also think those who make monopolistic fortunes off the sick while also dictating refusal of care to the sick are categorically not civilians. It is what it is.
Maybe he had a preexisting condition?
Like being a greedy sociopathic bastard?
And expect the health insurance industry to act on that.
Death is a preexisting condition.
I mean life has a 100% mortality rate, it’s just a matter of when.
I'm not sure we have the data to support that statement. 8.2B / 108B = 7.6% of everyone who has ever lived is currently alive. Perhaps some fraction of that is immortal.
Because the mods get off on simping for the rich it seems.
Oh no not violence against the rich! Inexcusable I say!
It's apparently against community rules to discuss violence in any form.
So instead let's talk about giving CEOs bunnies. Everybody loves bunnies and maybe putting a bunny in a CEOs lap will show them the love they are sorely missing.
Give every CEO a bunny. Give them 20. Give them bunnies while their backs are turned, surprise them with bunnies. Send them bunnies to their homes. Let them y know they are loved even while they're away from work. Put bunnies in their beds, in their cars. No billionaire CEO should ever turn a corner without knowing a bunny is there waiting. Let the billionaires know the true depths of our love. With bunnies.
you can use alcohol to eliminate those, and there's really no reason to retain those or even the uhhh. bunny cage? if they're properly cleaned, because caliber can be determined just by forensics and is totally useless for most LE to know, unless you're getting really weird with it. yeah. bunny caliber, the caliber of bunnies.
Violence is the reason every judge tip toed around Trump. Violence is possibly the only factor America will listen to. It's certainly the only language they speak.
And most importantly, with the threat of violence as the alternative.
Peace can work too, but the Ivory towers types need to learn that ignoring peaceful protest, and undermining accountability and regulation, will inevitably lead to violence. He brought this on himself.
Let's give them bunnies. Peace can come when they all have bunnies.
Improvised bunnies in their cars, high powered bunnies 200 yards away in the bushes.
They deserve bunnies.
I have bunnies. They will not give you peace.
You give them to the CEOs, the billionaires.
Bunnies at every turn. Let them know that they can't go outside without seeing a bunny. That they will know the love a bunny can give at every breath they take.
Saying Eat the rich or related phrases is now a removable offense, apparently.
Hey, mod, explain why you keep removing my posts.
Down voting boot lickers. Keep it coming.
Show your colors.
Juries can decide otherwise.
I’ll send the ceo some hopes and prayers
Guillotines and the French Revolution disagrees with you. But good on you to pat yourself on the back with your superior morals.
I don't know if it's morals, I just don't have the stomach for violence. That's kind of a weird thing to say to a person anyway.
That’s exactly what rich people are counting on. They want you to roll over and take it up the ass.
The freedoms you have today were obtained through bloodshed. So I’m not really sure what point you’re making other then you’re not willing to fight for anything.
So you’d rather give up on everything and fight for nothing. Nice dude.
Interesting, are you recruiting me to do something specific with you? Or should we just keep discussing how it's immoral not to do violence on an extremely public forum?
Fucking hell the mods are on a tear here. How does that boot taste?
Also go fuck yourself, mods.
Shoooould it thoooough?
I almost commented that UnitedHealthcare doesn't have a monopoly, but that's really only true at a national level. In some US states, they're the only option.
The disgusting profits are a product the health insurance industry, they only make money by denying coverage. It's an environment that encourages human suffering.
"those who make monopolistic fortunes off the sick while also dictating refusal of care to the sick" is hardly arbitrary, though, is it. It's quite a high bar to clear, that. It's rational too, since they do many orders of magnitude more harm than e.g. a death row inmate, whom society is content to destroy.
This oligarch is the system... This oligarch made the decisions to implement those policies. They are, after all, the CEO.
Bro you really think the shareholders wouldn't just kick him out if he didn't deliver? He's not the owner of the company and he didn't implement this political system
Buddy if you think it's just the left operating this way I have some beach front property in Arizona for a good price.
I am not celebrating. It's a tragedy, even if a predictable one. We'll all do better with a little more cooperation and a lot less greed.
I don't like it when people die, or get maimed.
If I say that I can understand how something like this happens, it's not out of sympathy for the murderer. It's just an accounting of facts amidst the fact that billions of people exist so obviously someone is going to be willing to kill for their perceived injustices. Especially when injustices are a lot more concrete than abstract.
Technically, and in reality, it's not a tragedy. Technically, dying from a pre-existing condition as a health insurance exec is a comedy. In reality, it's a net positive for society.
Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.
I'm thinking a lot about this one.
I'd agree. He likely got great comedic value from the people dying as a result of his decisions; and thinks those people being healthy is a tragedy.
The ruling class isn't a "civilian", because they literally command armed forces.
While not always called "armies", their function is the same: Secure the interest of the capitalist class.
Just like I wouldn't call the POTUS a "civilian", as the POTUS commands an armed force.
Insurance companies regularly commit acts of violence on the poor and sick for the benefit of their bottom line. People literally die because of the decisions this CEO made, so when the shoe is on the other foot, don't come crying because we know you're not an innocent actor, insurance company.
Let’s be honest here. This is probably the only way a ceo would ever be punished for crimes against the poor in America. Unfortunately this will probably lead to the increased militarisation of ceo security teams (and the police) rather than a recognition of why someone would want to dome a ceo in the first place.
It's nice that whomever did this didn't take their grudge out on a bunch of powerless workers. So often you see someone with a grudge against... whatever end up shooting a bunch of minimum wage employees who had no hand in their misfortune.
I feel sorry for the people who suffered and died due to the awful health insurance industry.
JD Vance said about school shootings being a ‘fact of life’ Maybe ceo shootings should be equally the same?
I am honestly surprised people fucked over by health insurance haven't tried to take things into their own hands before, if that's what this is. And if that's not what this is, it surprises me that it hasn't happened yet.
Plenty of people (me included) have been severely fucked over by insurance companies. I'm not willing to kill anyone, but there are a lot of people out there who are. Especially if they know they're dying and have nothing to lose.
The CEO is an employee, a manager. You know how shops have managers hired by the owners to run the place? If that were the motive, wouldn't owners be the preferred target?
Did you just say with a straight face that a CEO is simply a middleman who was powerless to change the internal workings of a system?
He's right to suggest that a board of directors should possibly be looked at as equally to blame for a company's policies and actions.
They should be, but they are harder to get to.
I mean sure you want to kill the opposing militaries generals, but a captain or above is nothing to scoff at.
Besides CEOs are more like a lieutenant or full bird Colonel.
Citizens united fucked America in the asshole.
A CEO is a CEO. Just because they are accountable to the shareholders does not make them working class. The CEO is the closest thing a corporation has to a singular owner. Their compensation package includes shares (ownership) of the company and they are the ones who make the decisions.
Literally their "job" is to be responsible for the actions of a corporation.
I guess responsibility was thrust upon him in this case.
Sure, they do make a lot of decisions, no question. However, those decisions are at the direction of a Board of Directors.
In the same way a manager would be fired if they went against their owners wishes, a CEO is similarly subject to their superiors.
If a CEO has very little authority as you claim then what the fuck are they getting paid all that money for?
The way I see it they either run the company, in which case they own the blame for a company's failures, or they are just a figurehead with no real influence, in which case they don't need to be paid any more than the actors the marketing team hires to be in their commercials.
It's actually between those two extremes. It's in the name, Chief Executive Officer. They're essentially there to execute the will of the ownership. They manage the company.
edit: To further expand on that, it's not too different from the executive of a country. While they make a lot of decisions, one thing they don't deserve blame for is any laws passed by the legislature. It's not a perfect analogy, but it captures the basic idea.
You are both right, if @[email protected] is not claiming that a CEO is not responsible for the running of the company - they are the top tier checks of each other, with the board having marginally more power with the ability to oust the CEO.
CEOs often are paid primarily in stock, so more than likely this guy had a significant ownership stake.
Excuse me? There is a bit left there on your chin.
If the CEO disagrees with the directions of the board, the CEO has a number of options. They can easily be considered culpable.
Sometimes you take what you can get.
I am honestly shocked that something like this hadn't happened much sooner
Maybe if we're (un)lucky this will be the start of a new trend.
When people are pushed to the point they have nothing left to lose this kinda thing will happen. I'm sort of surprised this kinda of things doesn't happen more often to people who make their fortunes off the suffering of others.
I'm sorry, bullets aren't covered by my healthcare executive sympathy plan.
We don't?
I have never had worse "insurance" than when I had United "Healthcare". They have you a big book full of all their "providers", but when you called to make an appointment, you were told they'd left United quite a while back and shouldn't be in the book. A few providers were still in network, but they weren't accepting new patients. Their "provider support" line was completely useless, because they would only read you out the "options" available in the book, the one with all the ghost providers.
My SIL in southern New Jersey ended up with them for some reason. She needed to see an OB/Gyn due to some abnormal bleeding that had been going on for too long. She went through their provider carousel and finally found one provider who was still in network and also still accepting new patients. That provider was 2.5 hours away from her, in the very other end of New Jersey.
I eventually did find one local provider who was in network, except they never did any comprehensive medical visits; you had to visit them for one issue at a time, at least a week apart. They'd give you a prescription or a referral but (once again) you were entirely on your own finding someone to accept the referral. Like there were times I'd make a dozen phone calls a day for weeks, trying to find someone who could see me - it was very much an entire part-time job trying to see someone!
I ended up switching insurance and have ended up 'captured' within a regional hospital's provider network. The hospital bought up a bunch of local independent providers in all the different specialities. I'm really unhappy with the continued corporatization of healthcare and the conglomeration of hospital networks - but the ability to call one number, be given a specialist within reasonable driving distance and (in that same phone call) be given an appointment within a reasonable timeframe is just so refreshing!
I was told by my nexyt door neighbor doctor that they pay doctors such abysmally low rates that no doctor wants to take their patients. It seems like a scheme to collect premiums and not render any care for members. And its one of the largest health care companies in the US.
I'm pretty sure that's why that one doctor would only go over one issue per visit.
With Molina, we would lose $30 by the time that the patient got in the room. We had to drop them as they refused to reimburse any better, even through all the inflation of everything else.
At least she wasn't in Texas. Might get admitted and still might not get care for that kind of thing.
I haven't had to test their reaction to more serious issues, where I've heard they're less good, but I'm covered by Kaiser and I like that in a single visit I can get my regular checkup, get my eyes checked, get new glasses, get bloodwork done, get vaccines, and pickup medicine at the pharmacy. For regular care the only thing that would be better if there wasn't a profit motive involved at all.
A few years ago on a cruise we sat at a table with a doctor who said he was in charge of all United Healthcare insurance approvals. This guy didn't just mention he had to sometimes refuse people care, he was absolutely giddy about it and took sadistic pleasure in seeing other people suffer. We moved to a different table to get away from him.
I guess we'll find out eventually, but I've got to wonder if the shooter was pushed over the edge after someone close to him died due to refusal of care by United Healthcare.
For real, Right!?
Serious mod abuse in this thread. Removing a lot of posts that don't actually break any rules.
Like I get that you have to ensure that people follow the rules, but you're waaaaaay overstepping that line.
Edit: seems to have calmed down a few hours after I posted this, now comments aren't getting removed unless they actually break the rules, as far as I can tell.
Having just had someone I care about go through the American health care system, I get it.
My person went through months of agony and will never be completely the same, for absolutely no reason other than the system trying to squeeze a little more money out.
I would never do this kind of thing. I don't think it's the way. But I get it. More than once I fantasized about burning down the head offices of the insurance company. I just don't think you can kill and hurt vulnerable people at massive scale for profit with your smug little grin, and expect people to ignore it forever, only because there's a set of traditions right now that makes it all legal.
private insurance profits only exist when human beings suffer. they cant both pay all required healthcare services and profit. human beings are required to suffer for their stock price.
theyve done a great job of convincing people that somehow magically their profits are separate from their required payouts, but that is a farce to make those reliant on private insurance feel better about fucking human beings over.
I'm not gonna celebrate or call for violence, but I am going to say I'm definitely not as bothered by this as I am with the constant cop killings and school shootings.
Late stage capitalism is getting to the terminal stage, I think. Well, it did for this CEO, at the least.
Getting to the find out stage.
Turns out it wasn’t the gunshots that killed him. Insurance declined because he wasn’t covered for that caliber and he wound up dying of infection.
/s
"Profits before People"-style mass murder gunned down. Thoughts and prayers. Bury the company with him.
Deeply ironic that when this news broke I was in an urgent care out of network because I couldn't get an appointment anywhere with my employer provided United Healthcare.
Oh well, anyway.
You know the worse thing is they can. They absolutely can pay out insurance claims AND profit.
They don't because they wouldn't profit ENOUGH. Think about how much MORE evil that is.
... wrong comment to reply to?
Yeah, sorry about that.
Try "he was an absolute asshole and the group was making people's lives hell in order to profit" for a reason.
The corporation using this fucking bullshit corpospeech for "our CEO was shot" makes me irrationally angry.
Heroic gunman stops mass murderer from continuing his work.
Good.
Edit: To the Downvoters, Lick boots.
Americans pay more for healthcare than any other country in the world. And that healthcare might be good, if you make it through all the barriers first. And you could be dead before that happens. If you even have healthcare after the incoming administration does what they plan on doing.
People are getting fed up and there are only going to be more desperate Americans going forward. Things are not going to get better. Expect more headlines like this in the future.
Awh noo.. The shooter got away :(
Be careful talking about legal things that can happen as MODS WILL ERASE YOUR COMMENTS ABOUT IT, and state it is against TOS even though it is not a call for violence, not an attack on users or groups, discrimination against anyone, isn't doxing, has nothing to do with privacy, is not a system disruption, is not illegal content, is not violent content, is not misinformation, nor is it doing harm. JURY NULLIFICATION IS NOT AGAINST TOS nor IS saying TEMPORARY INSANITY PLEA against TOS. IF MODS DO DELETE this please tell me which part of TOS any of this goes against? Edit: jury nullification is : "refusal of a jury to find a defendant guilty even with established guilt, because a conclusion that conviction would be contrary to some other concept of justice." Temporary insanity plea means: the defendant was mentally unstable when the crime took place. None of these endorse violence or are saying what the person did is correct. It is just saying that in this instance the defendant shouldn't be punished for their actions.
What a terrible tragedy, these are incredibly dark times. How will we as a nation, nay, a species, recover? This is a really really bad thing, and I do not like it. What has this poor, poor CEO done to deserve this? God, it should've been me! It should've been me!
Unfortunately, rather than distribute his pay and bonuses and benefits in order to provide a living wage for hospital staff, the rest of the upper management will have a benefits-cutting contest to decide which one of their own to elevate.
I'm relatively sure that the shooter will turn out to be someone who had a loved one suffer and die because they were refused health care coverage. This may turn out to be only the first of similar incidents.
Oops, sorry but I don’t feel sorry. Using a flawed ai to deny life saving care for people that paid for said insurance, maybe some board of directors should be held responsible as well….
Healthcare is a human right. Socialized medicine is cheaper than our current system, gives more people access, and prevents incidents like this.
Wonder if he was doing something genuinely good with his day or if he was on his way to a presentation with investors where they can gameplan new ways to capitalize on human suffering.
Shame, we'll never know.
"A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that the suspect was wearing a black hoodie and black pants and was carrying a gray backpack. It’s believed the suspect used a firearm with a silencer." So this was a hit? I'll grant that a lot of people might have wanted to take this guy out, but the real question is who was so motivated as to make it happen?
First reported in NY Post: https://nypost.com/2024/12/04/us-news/ceo-of-unitedhealthcare-fatally-shot-outside-of-hilton-hotel-in-nyc-in-possible-targeted-attack-sources/
Anyone who has been denied necessary healthcare by UHC or anyone who's loved one died because they were denied necessary healthcare by UHC would have a motive.
Died, disabled, or went through other unnecessary, avoidable pain and suffering. It's... quite a pool of candidates.
It sounds like he was receiving regular death threats and considered it par for the course.
Yes, but not all of them use UnitedHealth.
Me: Nope, never seem anyone like that before...
Officer: What about the guy in this picture wearing a black hoodie and pants that you appear to be staring at in this security video?
Me: Yeah... doesn't sound familiar.
Officer: Sir, that was 5 minutes ago...
Officer, I'm sorry, after re-examining the picture I am now sure I have seen that man multiple times.
Once a week for almost my entire life on Sunday's, and one time when I got tired walking on the beach he gave me a piggy back ride.
Suppressors require a federal tax stamp from the ATF to purchase, but yeah everything you said is true.
I would like to know more.
I mean sure you can forge the stamp, but the stamp is basically a proof of purchase for your “I don’t have to go to jail over this item” - it’s the associated paperwork and registration of said stamp that matters.
Could it fool a cop or nosy rangemaster? Sure. Will it pass any actual scrutiny when the ATF tries to authenticate? Lol nope.
You show your tax stamp to range safety dudes? Lmfao
If an old Boomer RSO approached me asking to see my tax stamp when I'm shooting my suppressed gun, I would tell them to fuck off because they aren't an authority to enforce the law; they're not the ATF, they're not the FBI, otherwise I could ask to see their social security card. Because they are simply gun safety babysitters, and regular fucking dudes with no real authority other than being allowed by the business owner to ask you to leave.
Me having a tax stamp is literally none of their fucking business.
It kinda sounds like he did this with at least the bones of a plan. And aren't silencers relatively easy to improvise, if you don't need it to last?
Wait time is like a month if you have it in your own name, 3ish if using a trust.
The "extra background check" really isn't any more indepth than the one for buying a gun either.
Silencer by no means implies this was a professional hit. Lots of people have em these days just for the hell of it
Huh. Tax stamps must have really changed. It used to be a 7 month wait, minimum, when I was dealing with them.
Been like that for a couple of years at least.
They switched from hardcopy to taking electronic and the backlog disappeared.
It takes like less than an hour to process one, same as waiting for a check to get a gun. The backlog was from moving hardcopies around.
Imagine thinking someone committing a crime obtained their weapons legally. Sure it’s possible but you’re just jumping to conclusions.
The only people who don't hate the US insurance industry are a) those who benefit financially from it and b) those who haven't been fucked over by it yet. Granted there are a lot of people in group b but all of them will eventually leave it.
So you're saying they have a very limited pool of potential suspects?
I'd be okay with them never finding out.
Yah know, in this modern world there are so many things that are immediately knowable, and yet even looking up something knowable takes time. I encourage people to rest comfortably in those tiny moments of unknowing, for the time during which they last. Savor the mystery.
Mods just deleted another of my comments for saying
"For America to get better, we need to be okay with bad things happening to bad people"
I am not entirely sure how this statement is calling for violence. Or Glorifying it. Or is even controversial.
The Mods here suck.
Wow, I came to Lemmy because the reddit mods were little bitches. Where to next?
A loss I will not mourn. I also extend no sympathy to his family. This man engaged in some of the most evil activity humanity has ever perpetrated—profiting on human suffering.
i mean of course people will eventually get so mad at ceo types to do things like this.
killing them individually like this won't fundamentally change things though, even if we get a little schadenfraude.
in addition to this, organize and collectivize that anger and we got ourselves real change.
lol. lmao, even.
This bit of news does not bother me at all. I wonder if this will become a trend now
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The CNN video thumbnail goes hard so I decided to make a low effort fake album cover.
Probably safer for bystanders than dynamite.
How long till Blackwater is authorized to operate on US soil?
Looks like we're speed running Cyberpunk!
Get ready for corpos walking around with those giant Arasaka bodyguards
I would think that this would draw attention that they are viable targets.
They already are.
lmfao i love karma
They already do. Its why the actual Occupy Wall St protests were quickly and ruthlessly dismantled and the useless Change.Org was set up.
Is that were change.org came from? Huh, never knew
Change.org was popularized by Obama where the only thing that gave it any functionality was that beyond a certain threshold that the president would be made aware that a given campaign hit that threshold.
This is not correct. Change.org has been around since 2007. You're thinking of petitions.whitehouse.gov.
They do: guillotines for people who criticize their horrid actions
Careful this comment might get removed
Why is news media so stupid?
5 million ways to kill a CEO
Huh.
Finally, now I know who is asking the tech companies for AI.
Time to block this fucking instance and it's shit fucking class traitor mods
Game over. What was his score?
There's an awful lot of celebratory assumptions going on here, I'd caution everybody that we still don't know the reason this guy was killed.
Everyone WANTS it to be "scumbag insurance exec. killed for scumbag insurance reasons", but we just don't know at this point.
Jilted lover? Could be. Caught cheating? Sure, why not? Insurance killing? Weirder things have happened. Friend or relative just sick of his shit? I mean, I dunno the guy, but anything is possible. Completely random killing? In MY New York City? It's more likely than you think!
In short, before you all start going "Wooo! Good start!" maybe take a breath and wait until we know more about what happened.
🍽
Leaked audio from what witnesses heard after the shooting. (SFW, but volume warning)
Oh, rofl, I did not read the word
right the first time.
🥰
Isn't this basically the plot of one of the Saw movies? Maybe minus some steps.
I wonder if it's possible to form a fight club, but with class as a basis
Awe shucks.
relevant Dr Glaucomflecken, relevant.
I don't think anybody deserves such a fate, but it does seem he was asking for it at least a little.
Is the shooter a tech bro or photographer? He’s wearing a peak design everyday backpack: https://www.peakdesign.com/products/everyday-backpack?Size=20L&Color=Ash
death squads are not things to cheer on in my book.
I feel like a lot of comments here equate a CEO with the owners.
CEOs chose to be the guard dogs & executioners doing bad shit.
While I'm not saying that would even change any of the comments, I do wanna add the context that basically anyone can be CEO, it's really one of the more replaceable jobs. The elite hire guys like this to to be the face for figurative and literal bullets, and compensate them well for that.
You're all ghouls. Each and every one of you who revels in this. Ironically, that's exactly what you claim his crime was.
I'm ashamed and embarrassed to be associated with you miserable wretches who would glorify murder to sate your revenge fantasies. You have no shame.
None of you know anything about this man aside from his occupation. You're all hateful, ignorant, self-righteous assholes.
You'll have to forgive me for not feeling sympathy when he oversaw UHC denying claims ten times more often than other insurers. How many families do you think experienced their own worst nightmares as a result of his actions?
Sounds like what's probably happening within dozens of families every day for people who have died because they were denied life saving coverage by UHC.
Being glad a bad person is gone isn't being violent. This man chose to take part in what is widely known to be a predatory and sometimes lethal system that can literally place people into poverty. And he chose to take part in an integral way near the top of that structure. He helped perpetuate it from the top.
These are not good people.
The gunman was violent. Anyone that's glad or indifferent is not.
I wonder if he had life insurance, and whether it will pay out.
Policy doesn't cover bullets as a cause of death. DENIED.
It's an interesting moral case. The current economic system rewards sociopathic wealth hoarding. How can we fight that? Is he an enemy combatant in the class war? I literally don't know.
not really, sins of the father is a concept older than the bible
Yeah, give the good guys guns so they can defend themselves from the bad guys with guns. This is literally your argument
You think the successor will change shit? This has to be changed politically, not just to hope you have a keen CEO; If you don't deliver financially shareholders will just replace you
This is real life where a badguy just lost
Someone up thread brought up that someone in a position such as a health care CEO can cause a tremendous amount more of suffering than death row inmates might have caused. That is an interesting point.
It has also crossed my mind that if, once a week, the richest person on the planet were killed, eventually fear would outweigh greed, and remaining folks of extraordinary means would be likely to be pushed toward justice.
And yet…
I am not a killer. I live in a country where I don't want to see the kind of assassinations I read about abroad. I want the rule of law to prevail. I'm cognizant that if a movement took off where powerful, “evil” people were killed, there would probably be an opposite reaction that could lead to snowballing violence.
Overall, this is a complex subject. Reasonable arguments can be made and supported by various ethical frameworks. I imagine good people are likely to experience cognitive dissonance when reading this news.
tl;dr murder bad, fairness & widespread prosperity good
::: spoiler also
We still have egalitarian-minded Americans with disposable income and free time who have not yet devoted those resources to agitating for change. I would imagine this factor, of potential opportunities not yet exhausted, diminishes the power of arguments for the righteousness of extrajudicial processes. (Most every night after work I choose to NOT devote my time to activism.) In contrast, if no free personhours remained not occupied by labor, sleep, or activism, I imagine vigilante behavior would be easier to defend in a debate.
:::
How can you describe UnitedHealthCare's practices as anything other than bloodlust? They fired the first shot in this war.
only reason he's in the news is cause he's rich
The other post had it just as bad if not worse before it was removed entirely.
I tried to bring up the point that a system where we kill CEOs because we don't like their business practices isn't going to fix anything and the downvotes immediately poured in.
Either this is just the way that a lot of people on Lemmy think, or there's some concerted effort/psyop trying to stir discontent among the users here.
For a bit there I was doubting if I even wanted to be associated with Lemmy anymore, but at least it looks like the mods have been cleaning up the worst comments.