‘Deny’, ‘Defend’, ‘Depose’: A Sharp Eye
Did the Shooting of a United Healthcare CEO Reveal the True Face of Our Enemy?
This was one of those rare moments where we were all able to come together on something. Our collectivism here is a refreshing buffer against our daily dose of online division at the hands of a privileged majority. Like the submarine of billionaires that went down a couple of years ago, the downfall of yet another capitalist Goliath to our David reminds us of nature’s ability to, at times, insist upon equilibrium. And so we celebrate, as morbid or as insensitive as it may be, because, against an impenetrable wall of bodies piled from unjustified deaths, the death of this CEO feels a little like justice, especially when one considers the magnitude of his crimes.
On the other side of this, Thompson’s shooter has become nothing short of an internet sensation and a favorite among the general public. Between the John Wick comparisons and memes about his attractiveness, the NYC look-alike contest, and deep dives into the masterful nature of his ability, the shooter managed to amass a following despite maintaining his anonymity until just recently. Officially, the motive remains ‘unclear,’ but after we dig into the details of the case, which have of course already been assigned meaning, the clarity of his ‘motive’ as far as the investigation goes becomes entirely unimportant. As always, the revelations we can gather from the shooting—and more importantly, what we can gather from our response to it—are far more crucial here.
“Deny,” “defend,” and “depose” read the bullet casings used against the CEO, bearing a stark similarity to the title of Feinman’s 2010 novel Delay, Deny, Defend, which criticizes the property and casualty insurance industry and its profit-driven practices that negatively impact both policyholders and an unsuspecting public. Feinman sheds light on how insurers prioritize financial gain over consumers' needs in magnificent capitalistic splendor, using tactics like delaying or denying claims to improve their bottom lines, irrespective of the impact felt by those most desperately in need of care. Those directly caught in the thick of Feinman’s investigation, like Claims Magazine editor Christina Bramlet, criticized the book for being overly inflammatory and potentially fueling mistrust between policyholders and insurers, which is the kind of thing people say when they’re trying to deflect blame away from the source and toward the whistleblower—who could only help to save us all.
In 2009, a Harvard Medical School study found that 45,000 Americans die each year due to a lack of health insurance (which equals approximately 123 people per day). But even without statistics, it has become common knowledge among Americans who suffer at the hands of their healthcare system, and among us observing from the outside, that exploitation seems to lie at the heart of the pharmaceutical industry, in a way that is almost canonical—like how British people complain about the underfunded nature of our own National Health Service or how the French complain about bureaucracy. But the normalization of the inaccessible nature of health insurance doesn’t offset its severity, and so when you continue practices that essentially monetize human life, you almost knowingly create an environment stifled by just resentment toward the system in place, and a resistance that, sooner or later, would require a face for target practice—a truth that hasn’t gone unnoticed by others who fall into that same category of ‘those whom humanity might be better off without.’
This week, we’ve noticed that CEOs are deactivating their LinkedIn profiles and are largely scrubbing their presences from the more easily accessible parts of the internet, to avoid ending up on some sort of hit list. More specifically, health insurers like CVS Health and BlueCross Blue Shield are in the process of removing executive bios from their websites after the NYPD dubbed the shooting a “brazen, targeted attack.”
It would be all too easy for corporations to ignore public outcry (or feelings of vindication) if they could find a way to reduce our collective fervor to yet another instance of reactionary sentiments from the overzealous left-wing youth. And if there were room to play this card, I have no doubt that things would be spun this way. But when a range of demographics finds themselves sitting on suppressed anger at a healthcare system that profits off of their illnesses, there truly is nothing left to do but run and hide. There is always the option to confront and begin to amend the problem, but of course, this does not appear to be a feasible option...
As such, even those assigned to protect and serve government interests appear to have magically dropped the ball with this one. In the earliest stages of the investigation, police officers seemed to be less preoccupied with identifying the killer as their badges reminded them of the concept of justice. Almost the entirety of both mine and your ‘For You’ page this week was partially dedicated to feelings of shock—not at the shooting, but at the ways in which policemen appeared to almost praise the shooter’s ability not to get caught.
In light of our collective ire, we’re seeing yet again that despite the differences among us as we all belong to certain identities, and despite the ways in which we’ve managed to create a hierarchy even within the working class in an effort to feel closer to the CEOs, poverty is the great equalizer. But this isn’t news to most of us, and our response to the shooting merely serves to redirect our focus toward a bigger picture.
A poetic finale to the details of the case was a stash of Monopoly money found in the shooter’s backpack alongside its other contents. This feature, entirely emblematic of what has become a gamified system, teaches us about the kind of game you’d expect to see in a Black Mirror episode, but sadly represents our reality, where the stakes are human lives, but the currency is still profit. Hopefully, now the air of class consciousness is thick enough not to simply waft over our heads but to permeate our minds too.
Here’s to keeping a sharp eye.
Asisa