On The Shooting Of Brian Thompson

There's no shortage of people commenting upon the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Liberal media outlets are correctly pointing out how much this emphasizes the many injustices caused by having an insurance-based healthcare system. Conservative media outlets are emphasizing how senseless this heinous act is, and that murder is not justifiable, no matter the motivation.

Oddly enough, both sides are correct for once. Also, not so oddly, both sides miss the main point.

Which means, of course, I have to say it. And I'll get to that main point in a minute. (Or you could just scroll down to the bold-print section. But I think you'll like what I have to say as a preamble.)

I won't attempt to justify the vigilante who shot Thompson. Murder is murder. I won't cheer the fact that (finally!) a corporate insurance bigwig paid the true cost of healthcare theft. But I can certainly understand the temptation. We've all been screwed over by the insurance industry one way or another. We all have friends or family who have suffered greatly trying to pay premiums and out-of-pocket expenses - and that's just the medical aspect of insurance. I, myself, recently saw a coworker get denied short-term disability after a major operation because his condition had been diagnosed more than three months earlier, thus making the condition "pre-existing." After his vacation and sick time expired, the poor man had to do without pay while he recovered, all because he missed the fine print.

In Thompson's mild defense, I highly doubt he even fully comprehended what his policies have been doing at ground-level. Corporate executives seldom do. They see charts and graphs, not people. They hire thousands of others to handle the individual injustices, and even those people never have to deal with those they screw over face-to-face. On an intellectual level, Thompson probably knew what he was doing, but the lives he affected weren't real for him.  The denied claims aren't allowed to be personal. They are merely claim #005797432, or #050776484. Not human beings, just numbers on a computer screen, and ones he didn't even see. One mouse click by an underling - done.

But it was certainly personal for the shooter.

Like most CEO's, Thompson was probably a conservative; probably in favor of gun rights; and almost certainly opposed to government assistance of any kind - all while playing golf with a handicap (because it's not welfare when it's golf, right?). We don't really know for sure at this point. But nobody is talking about the lax gun laws which made it possible. I kind of wish more people were. But if we can't even get outraged over classrooms full of kids getting gunned down, seemingly year after year, why should we be surprised if no one gets outraged when a major Republican party campaign donor gets shot and killed?

And here, finally, is the main point: For generations, we have been living with a healthcare system, even post-Obamacare, in which one major illness could potentially wipe out 1) one's life-savings, 2) inheritance, and 3) kids' college tuition fund, all in one blow! If we lived in a sane world, we would be rioting to change that every day; to stop being the one developed nation on the goddamned planet to not have a nationalized healthcare system for everyone! And not just those over the age of 65!

But the Right Wing Media Machine is so widespread, the institutionalized disinformation so prevalent, that we cannot even think our way out of this wet paper bag.

Yeah, yeah, I know, government screws up everything. I won't deny it. In fact, government screws up so badly that the only thing which screws up worse is a goddamned insurance company!

And yet here we are, trusting that one, even worse, totally evil thing. Because we're so scared of the word, "socialism," we would rather watch one's entire family go broke while lying on the gurney.

Nothing, nothing will snap us out of our mass delusion on this! If we haven't woken up by now, no mere shooting of a CEO will make any difference. We will all get shafted for hundreds of thousands of dollars, even with good health coverage, and still scream afterward, "socialized medicine is evil!"

It's enough to give me an ulcer. Or a heart attack. But I don't dare get either of those - it will cost too much!

Forgive me as I echo Steve Martin in the movie Roxanne, but I have a dream. It's a simple dream, really. It's not an impossible dream. It's not even much of a challenge, really. All I want in this country is that, if (heaven forbid) a citizen gets a major illness, that person doesn't end up screaming at the top of his lungs, "For god's sake, whatever you do, don't take me to the hospital! It'll ruin me!"

The manhunt for Thompson's killer goes on. I'm reluctantly impressed at the shooter's meticulous planning and (if you'll forgive the pun) execution. 

But real healthcare for all is proving to be even more elusive.

Eric

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