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Luigi Mangione reveals motive for CEO's killing after pleading guilty in federal case (www.pbs.org)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/investigativejournalism@sh.itjust.works
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He detailed some of his planning leading up to the murder. He said that he was motivated by years of back pain and what he believed was a health insurance system working against him. He said that, once he learned that the UnitedHealthcare Company was holding an investor summit in Manhattan, he e-mailed company leadership posing as an investor to get information about where and when this meeting was taking place.

And that's how he was able to confront Brian Thompson. Mangione also shared an observation with the judge that had clearly made an impression on him. He talked about how, while he was posing as a wealthy investor, leadership e-mailed him back within an hour, and he said that was in stark contrast to his interactions with insurers as a patient.

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[–] 18 points 2 months ago (15 children)

I don't either, really, but CEOs are under pressure from the board of directors and investors to constantly and relentlessly increase profits. If it wasn't that Thompson asshole, it would have just been another one. It's not one evil man, it's the whole system.

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  • [–] 71 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    The system requires evil men to do that job. You can say it'd just be another, but they'll run out of them pretty quick if there are consequences to their actions

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Oh, I agree. But the consequences are usually in the form of big bonuses for the perpetrators. The law protects them. We have to scrap the system.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Or we could just pass a law mandating that they have to approve any request made by a doctor unless they can show clear evidence of fraud.

    This will probably cause a collapse of most of the health insurance industry, which shouldn't exist in its current form anyway.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    "Greed is good."

    "There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game."

    Fuck Milton Friedman. Do I think he makes cold logical sense? Yes, but that's precisely the problem, his philosophy is devoid of warmth and humanity. His ideas are what led to where we are now. Friedman is the AI agentic machine in the flesh if put in charge. Now that i think about it, he's probably the Terminator but instead of using physical violence to achieve results, he's using cold logical argument to convince others that "greed is good" and to abandon social responsibility, leading to suffering caused by administrative decisions.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    The problem isn't that he's cold and logical. Cold? Yes. Logical? Only in the context of the game we are playing. This reasoning is not logical when applied to a society. Society is not a game. Life is not a game. Business IS a game and the principle of that game is stone simple. The problem is seeing the game and society as the same thing. They aren't. That is why you don't ever want to run a government like a business. A business is much simpler.

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