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Assassination of United Healthcare CEO

alfaniner said:
His shouting and struggling when being brought into the jail reminded me of some movie. Someone wrestling with cops and saying "It doesn't matter -- you're all dead!" I might be thinking of Sarah Connor in T2, but in the back of my mind it's a guy. Michael Biehn? Bruce Willis (12 Monkeys)?
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I watched T2 again a few days ago. You got it right.

Doesn't apply in this case though - unless health insurance companies are building Skynet. :eye-poppi
 
Anyone remember this old thread where people were saying that 3d printed buns weren't going to be a problem?

arthwollipot

Thread 'Landmark Legal Shift Opens Pandora's Box for DIY Guns'

A LANDMARK LEGAL SHIFT OPENS PANDORA’S BOX FOR DIY GUNS

It's a longish read, but here are some extracts. First, some background:

FIVE YEARS AGO, 25-year-old radical libertarian Cody Wilson stood on a remote central Texas gun range and pulled the trigger on the world’s first fully 3-D-printed gun. When, to his relief, his plastic invention fired a .380-caliber bullet into a berm of dirt without jamming or exploding in his hands, he drove back to Austin and uploaded the blueprints for the pistol to his website, Defcad.com.

He'd launched the site months earlier along with an...
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arthwollipot said:
What to make of it is that many Americans are quite happy to celebrate and glorify murder, as long as the victim is someone they don't like.
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No, you got it completely wrong, and you did so deliberately! You are playing the silly game of false abstractions that makes many ISF discussions so annoying.
1) They don't "celebrate and glorify murder." The T-shirt couldn't make it more obvious that what they're celebrating is Luigi Mangione. Other T-shirts (stickers, mugs, candles, ...) have the words Deny Defend Depose to make it obvious why they celebrate him. If they had wanted to "celebrate and glorify murder", they would have known how to do it: They would have chosen other names and other motives. Richard Kuklinski would have been a much more obvious choice. Or maybe William Calley*, whose name everybody has forgotten. Didn't it occur to you that that is not what they do?
2) And if they wanted to celebrate and glorify the murder of "someone they don't like," they would have chosen the names of their next door neighbor, who mows his lawn at 6 a.m., the cashier at target with the condescending attitude, or the guy who lets his dog ◊◊◊◊ on the sidewalk. They didn't!

* "He was found guilty of murdering (!) 22 villagers and originally given a life sentence, but served three-and-a-half years under house arrest after U.S. president Richard Nixon commuted his sentence." (Wiki) But since the victims were foreigners, suspected of being communists, and not even white, I guess they didn't really count.
 
a big part of it is a guy like thompson is imo objectively a bad person, making more money than god off of the unnecessary suffering of others, and it's legally sanctioned. meaning there is no method of recourse for people like brian thompson to be held accountable through the justice system, for whatever that's worth anyway. what that means is that while you might think it's wrong and you might think, well americans should change that instead, but people like brian thompson are the ones standing in the way of that change. and you might think that life's not fair and we should just deal with it. but sometimes life's not fair for people like brian thompson.

right and wrong don't matter, there's only the law is an very unamerican sentiment anyway imo
 
Thermal said:
Yes, we all know this, and have for about a century. So what?
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Because it shows that coincidences do happen. Your argument that the timing was too good doesn't work because you can't discount that Mangione got lucky.


Thermal said:
It was not. We discussed this in depth upthread.
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It was an investors conference. UHO is a publicly traded company. Anybody can buy shares and thus get notified of conferences to which they have been invited. Additionally, there will be online forums for shareholders where such meetings will be discussed.

Thermal said:
Because they are on a private internal mailing list. We did this already. Have you not been reading this thread?

Yes. {ETA: I am wondering more and more about this. Posters have been insisting that Thompson was the intended target, because of the words on the shell casings. But I'm not so sure Witty wasn't the intended target, and Luigi got entirely he wrong guy? I mean, if we are interpreting every event as part of a zany madcap sitcom plot}

I'm sure luck played a part, both good and bad. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a part that seems to have been planned.

He was videoed walking around a block away, talking on a burner phone at 6:30AM. After this call, he goes straight to the ambush spot and waits. For like 5 mins, and the (presumed) target walks right in front of him.

So ok. We know now that family and friends say he had gone "poof" for about a year (I don'rt actually believe this, but it kinda sorta helps to account for why no one IDed him from the circulated pics for a week). So who was he talking to on a freaking burner phone immediately before the ambush? You think he was calling for the current time? Maybe checking the surf report?

They have the phone (presumably), and the call logs will be telling, especially the number he was making/receiving the call he was on. And how often they were in contact and when, etc.
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We'll see but he was caught in possession of a firearm which can be linked to the murder plus a "manifesto". He's not exactly a criminal genius.
 
Andy_Ross said:
For what? He didn't use a 3d printed gun, he isn't some kind of tech bod.
He has had a crappy malfunctioning cobbled together Glock. As for the NYPD, they thought he was using some kind of exotic assassins gun based on a Welrod.
It was obviously nothing of the sort, I said that based on my own experience with the claimed weapon and just watching the video.
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But unlike you, the NYPD Chief of Detectives has the gun in his possession, and clearly said what he did say. = "Considerably better qualified than yeowwww".

Mangione was a tech bod.
 
dirtywick said:
a big part of it is a guy like thompson is imo objectively a bad person, making more money than god off of the unnecessary suffering of others, and it's legally sanctioned. meaning there is no method of recourse for people like brian thompson to be held accountable through the justice system, for whatever that's worth anyway. what that means is that while you might think it's wrong and you might think, well americans should change that instead, but people like brian thompson are the ones standing in the way of that change. and you might think that life's not fair and we should just deal with it. but sometimes life's not fair for people like brian thompson.

right and wrong don't matter, there's only the law is an very unamerican sentiment anyway imo
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Surely the reason for the murder of Brian Thompson is entirely symbolic. The guy did everything right. Studied hard. Went to business school. Graduated in business admin and accounting. Applied for a graduate-entry job. Got promoted to CEO. At the end of the day it was just a job. He was an employee.
 
Vixen said:
Surely the reason for the murder of Brian Thompson is entirely symbolic. The guy did everything right. Studied hard. Went to business school. Graduated in business admin and accounting. Applied for a graduate-entry job. Got promoted to CEO. At the end of the day it was just a job. He was an employee.
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I think the view is that he was a ridiculously well paid employee earning more in a year* than most people earn in a lifetime and that this massive reward was based heavily on ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ people over.

In reality, he was the organ grinder, not the monkey, doing his unpleasant work on behalf of shareholders and shareholding corporations worth many times what he was.


Edit: A quick google reveals that it took Brian less than two months to comfortably exceed the lifetime earnings of the average american. I suspect this is a significant contributing factor to the response to this killing.
 
Vixen said:
But unlike you, the NYPD Chief of Detectives has the gun in his possession, and clearly said what he did say. = "Considerably better qualified than yeowwww".

Mangione was a tech bod.
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We have seen pictures of the gun, it's not an exotic assassins gun and a couple of plastic parts don't make it a 3d printed gun.
 
Vixen said:
But unlike you, the NYPD Chief of Detectives has the gun in his possession, and clearly said what he did say. = "Considerably better qualified than yeowwww".

Mangione was a tech bod.
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Mangione had a gun, one plastic part of which seems to have been 3D printed, and thus was not serial numbered. He didn't really print a gun.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Mangione had a gun, one plastic part of which seems to have been 3D printed, and thus was not serial numbered. He didn't really print a gun.
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Here is the quote, which the poster said was 'bollocks'.

BREAKING: The suspect, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione used a “ghost g-n” that was possibly made on a 3D printer in the sh—ting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in NYC. “The g-n appears to be a ghost g-n, may have been made on a 3D printer [with] the capability of firing a 9 - -NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny
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Please explain in which way DI Kenny is talking rubbish. (Remember: NYPD has the said gun in their possession.)
 
Vixen said:
Surely the reason for the murder of Brian Thompson is entirely symbolic. The guy did everything right. Studied hard. Went to business school. Graduated in business admin and accounting. Applied for a graduate-entry job. Got promoted to CEO. At the end of the day it was just a job. He was an employee.
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What did Brian Thompson do to get promoted to CEO? Could an attitude resulting in the following have something to do with it?
Brian Thompson (businessman): Career (Wikipedia)
in 2019, UHC's prior authorization denial rate was 8%. He became CEO in 2021, and by 2022 the rate of denial had increased to 22.7%. The rate further increased to 32% as of 2023. For both Medicare and non-Medicare claims, UHC declines claims at a rate which is double the industry average.
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Why did the guys in the room that he was going to speak to that morning let him continue to have that job? What did they reward him for? For having studied hard?
Is earning $10 million a year (plus benefits, I assume) "just a job", i.e. being an ordinary employee?
His total compensation was $9.6 million in 2021, $9.8 million in 2022, and $10.2 million in 2023. Under his leadership, UnitedHealthcare's profits increased from $12 billion in 2021 to $16 billion in 2023. At the time of Thompson's death, the company was the largest health insurer in the United States. (Wikipedia)
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Is it common for companies to surround their compounds with fencing the day after an ordinary employee is killed?
UnitedHealthcare headquarters partially surrounded by fencing as hunt for CEO killer continues (FOX9, Dec 7, 2024)
A FOX 9 photographer captured footage showing the campus entrances blocked off by fencing on Saturday.
There was also a police observation trailer placed nearby.
Another Minnetonka-based insurance company, Medica, announced it is closing the office buildings at its headquarters will be "temporarily closed out of an abundance of caution."
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3point14 said:
I think the view is that he was a ridiculously well paid employee earning more in a year* than most people earn in a lifetime and that this massive reward was based heavily on ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ people over.

In reality, he was the organ grinder, not the monkey, doing his unpleasant work on behalf of shareholders and shareholding corporations worth many times what he was.


Edit: A quick google reveals that it took Brian less than two months to comfortably exceed the lifetime earnings of the average american. I suspect this is a significant contributing factor to the response to this killing.
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I get that Mangione had a pressing manifesto, etcetera, and similar shared beliefs with Tad Kaczinski. Herein lies the deficiencies of the anarchistic school of thought. Shooting presidents or head honchos of corporations one believes to be immoral doesn't really do anything to change the system because, (a) it is an office, and thus a new incumbent steps in to fill the now vacant job, and (b) anarchism and 'direct action' never solved anything: (c) some anarchists are self-professed 'libertarians' and lean to extreme right-wing views and others are extreme left-wing 'revolutionaries' who want to bring down capitalism and start all over again. Anarchy is the worst political stance IMV. Whilst undoubtedly, Mangione's act has triggered a wide-ranging debate that might lead to change in the US healthcare structure in this instance, with Mangione's tactics capturing people's imagination, ultimately, Mangione didn't have enough integrity (a superior quality he brags of having) to let Mr. Thompson have the courtesy of his telling Mr. Thompson to his face why he was being bumped off, even if Mangione thought it self-evident.
 
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Vixen said:
Here is the quote, which the poster said was 'bollocks'.



Please explain in which way DI Kenny is talking rubbish. (Remember: NYPD has the said gun in their possession.)
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It wasn't made on a 3d printer.
 
Vixen said:
Here is the quote, which the poster said was 'bollocks'.

Please explain in which way DI Kenny is talking rubbish. (Remember: NYPD has the said gun in their possession.)
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Was it the quote, or was it your inference? You gave me the impression you thought Kenny meant the suspect had 3D printed the murder weapon.
 
dann said:
What did Brian Thompson do to get promoted to CEO? Could an attitude resulting in the following have something to do with it?

Why did the guys in the room that he was going to speak to that morning let him continue to have that job? What did they reward him for? For having studied hard?
Is earning $10 million a year (plus benefits, I assume) "just a job", i.e. being an ordinary employee?

Is it common for companies to surround their compounds with fencing the day after an ordinary employee is killed?
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He and others were being investigated for insider trading and corruption, so Thompson may well have been in the process of being brought to justice for corrupt practices. Public Limited Companies are supposed to be well regulated, especially after Enron, et al, plus people in theory should vote in politicians who will pass laws to change things. The USA is the ultimate capitalist state. Profit is king. How to change that highly divisive structure? Well, nobody wants communism. People don't want the high-tax welfare states of the Nordic template. Leaders of government. commerce and industry expect high remuneration, that is why they spent years going through the education mill to place themselves on that rung as contenders.
 
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acbytesla said:
I hate the fact that Brian Thompson was murdered. I hate the idea that political discourse involves violence.

That said, this is a wakeup call. Our healthcare industry is a major parasite on the American economy. Warren Buffett said it was a tapeworm. And that the tapeworm killed the patient.
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The US health insurance syatem is functionally no different than the lebensunwertes leben programme, except the US system gets its victims to pay for the system.
 
Vixen said:
Surely the reason for the murder of Brian Thompson is entirely symbolic. The guy did everything right. Studied hard. Went to business school. Graduated in business admin and accounting. Applied for a graduate-entry job. Got promoted to CEO. At the end of the day it was just a job. He was an employee.
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One might even say he was just following orders.
 
3point14 said:
I think the view is that he was a ridiculously well paid employee earning more in a year* than most people earn in a lifetime and that this massive reward was based heavily on ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ people over.
In reality, he was the organ grinder, not the monkey, doing his unpleasant work on behalf of shareholders and shareholding corporations worth many times what he was.
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For some people, I don't think that kind of work is unpleasant at all! I would consider alternatives like disgusting, deplorable or reprehensible.
3point14 said:
Edit: A quick google reveals that it took Brian less than two months to comfortably exceed the lifetime earnings of the average american. I suspect this is a significant contributing factor to the response to this killing.
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He may have been headhunted for his position at UnitedHealthcare after his seven years at PwC:
Brian Thompson (businessman): Career (Wikipedia)
From 1997 to 2004, Thompson worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as a manager in the transaction advisory services group of the audit practice.
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I suspect that he spent his time at PwC honing his skills. It seems to be a suitable place for it:
PwC: Controversies (Wikipedia)
The firm has been embroiled in a number of corruption controversies and crime scandals. The firm has on multiple occasions been implicated in tax evasionand tax avoidance practices. The company has aided war criminals in evading sanctions. The company has frequently performed insufficient audits, whereby it performs auditing services that vouch for the finances of companies without following basic auditing standards.
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Jack by the hedge said:
Was it the quote, or was it your inference? You gave me the impression you thought Kenny meant the suspect had 3D printed the murder weapon.
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This is how the gun is described:

As Luigi Mangione was handcuffed and placed under arrest in Pennsylvania on Monday, police searched the backpack he'd been carrying and found what they described as a loaded 3D-printed firearm, a suppressor and a single loose bullet.

"Officers located a black 3D-printed pistol and a black silencer," wrote Tyler Frye and Joseph Detwiler, members of the Altoona Police Department, in a criminal complaint filed in Blair County, Pennsylvania. They described the weapon as having "a metal slide and a plastic handle with a metal threaded barrel."

"The pistol had one loaded Glock magazine with six nine-millimeter full metal jacket rounds. There was also one loose nine-millimeter hollow point round," the officers wrote. "The silencer was also 3D printed."
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ABC News

If you think this is worthy of cursing, you need to explain why you know better than members of the Altoona Police Department.
 
Vixen said:
This is how the gun is described:



ABC News

If you think this is worthy of cursing, you need to explain why you know better than members of the Altoona Police Department.
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A police press release? No chance for misinformation there..

What reason do you have to believe any and all police officers, even a chief of detectives, are fire arms "experts" ?
 
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Foster Zygote said:
One might even say he was just following orders.
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Ridiculous to compare it with the prison camp guards, but strangely, at the Nuremburg trials, that was an accepted excuse for the >eight million card-carrying members of National Socialists Workers Party in WWII Germany. Only two hundred officers (=the decision makers) were hanged.

As an analogy, people take jobs where they can find them. Business school is all about maximising profits. These are the people employed to do this for the corporate shareholders, who just want a big fat annual dividend.

The USA is traditionally a 'small society' country where everybody is expected to pay their own way. I was shocked when my good US friend said she only had 14 days holiday a year, plus she drove 200 miles to work and back every day. But hey, everybody's a millionaire is the backstory.
 
Vixen said:
This is how the gun is described:

ABC News

If you think this is worthy of cursing, you need to explain why you know better than members of the Altoona Police Department.
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I hoped only to correct what appeared to be your false impression that the suspect had made a plastic gun, rather than his having a gun with its plastic frame seemingly 3D printed and thereby having no serial number (the metal parts being openly available as spares and not serial numbered). I make no opinion on whether "bollocks" was too strong a term but I didn't swoon from the shock nor require smelling salts.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
I hoped only to correct what appeared to be your false impression that the suspect had made a plastic gun, rather than his having a gun with its plastic frame seemingly 3D printed and thereby having no serial number (the metal parts being openly available as spares and not serial numbered). I make no opinion on whether "bollocks" was too strong a term but I didn't swoon from the shock nor require smelling salts.
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Don't be silly.
 
Opinion among 3d gun enthusiasts seems to be that the frame is the FMDA 19.2 Chairmanone printed frame or a modified commercial moulded '80%' frame like those made by Polymer 80 or 80% Arms. Look at the magazine release and the cut-out for it on the grip, that is the main difference between the standard frame and this one.
The rest of it looks to be standard Glock components as would be expected as they are the metal components that can't be replaced with polymer.
So no, replacing one polymer part for another polymer part does not make it a 3d printed gun.


That a picture of the suppressor hasn't been released is telling. It suggests it is home made rather than commercial and they don't want pictures of it released.
 
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Vixen said:
Ridiculous to compare it with the prison camp guards, but strangely, at the Nuremburg trials, that was an accepted excuse for the >eight million card-carrying members of National Socialists Workers Party in WWII Germany. Only two hundred officers (=the decision makers) were hanged.

As an analogy, people take jobs where they can find them. Business school is all about maximising profits. These are the people employed to do this for the corporate shareholders, who just want a big fat annual dividend.
The USA is traditionally a 'small society' country where everybody is expected to pay their own way. I was shocked when my good US friend said she only had 14 days holiday a year, plus she drove 200 miles to work and back every day. But hey, everybody's a millionaire is the backstory.
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Are you arguing that Brian Thompson was not a decision maker?
Was he just a poor victim of corporate greed?
Has it occurred to you that "the corporate shareholders, who just want a big fat annual dividend" appoint and reward CEOs who are particularly unscrupulous and ruthless?
Has it occurred to you that even business schools teach ethics? I doubt that it's an important part of the curriculum, but it does exist.
 
The problem with characterizing the gun as 3D printed is that it gives the impression to a layperson that they can just print up a functioning firearm with the same ease that you can print out a picture of LOLcats that you see on your phone. I really don't think it's that simple.

And come on, this is the United States. It's not like getting a handgun is some kind of insurmountable obstacle. If you are not overly concerned with legal compliance, you can have a dirty (or at least gray market) gun in your hands right off the street pretty quickly and cheaply.

His fake ID was lame, the kind that kids use to get in bars. It doesn't scan or tie to a legit ID that would pass cursory scrutiny. Good fakes are scanner readable and tie to an actual person in the police database, just with a different picture. Luigi bought one where everything was fake and just had his pic attached. Showing it to a cop is what got him in cuffs in the first place.
 
Whoever is making that shirt is more than likely just scamming people anyway. That has to be a trademark infringement of some sort.
 
dann said:
Are you arguing that Brian Thompson was not a decision maker?
Was he just a poor victim of corporate greed?
Has it occurred to you that "the corporate shareholders, who just want a big fat annual dividend" appoint and reward CEOs who are particularly unscrupulous and ruthless?
Has it occurred to you that even business schools teach ethics? I doubt that it's an important part of the curriculum, but it does exist.
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Yes, ethics and corporate governance is a key part of any business course. But that doesn't stop the unscrupulous from being unscrupulous, any more than nurses being taught to avoid air embolism stops a rogue nurse from administering them. It is not clear that Brian Thompson was corrupt anyway. He seems to have been earning significantly less than the other bosses and had fewer shares. Yes, he offloaded $15m of them but that isn't necessarily 'insider trading', it could just have been normal market signalling - rumours of an antitrust investigation - which made Mr. Thompson follow the lead of his peers. That's how market prices work: share prices go up and they go down. A shrewd investor watches these carefully. That is why they all read Financial Times or Wall Street Journal [corr] for the daily movements.

Brian Thompson as CEO would have been the business strategy formulator - mission statement, objectives and key performance indicators, ensuring at least a 10% gain on profits year-on-year. He was obviously skilled to have risen through the ranks of PwC to fill that position. The idea that PwC is corrupt because they had a few regulators sanctions is also silly because these sanctions are all par for the course. The regulators have to be kept busy somehow. The last accountancy practice I worked for had several knuckle raps from their regulators ICAE&W. Every accountancy practice of any size in England and Wales will have their fair share of 'findings against' them. Why? Because clients complain. Sometimes those complaints are upheld and sometimes not. That's what the regulatory bodies are there for. And they like to let it be known that their presence is there. Deloitte, Grant Thornton, Mazars, KPMG, all have been rapped by the regulators on a regular basis.
 
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Vixen said:
Yes, ethics and corporate governance is a key part of any business course. But that doesn't stop the unscrupulous from being unscrupulous, any more than nurses being taught to avoid air embolism stops a rogue nurse from administering them. It is not clear that Brian Thompson was corrupt anyway. He seems to have been earning significantly less than the other bosses and had fewer shares. Yes, he offloaded $15m of them but that isn't necessarily 'insider trading', it could just have been normal market signalling - rumours of an antitrust investigation - which made Mr. Thompson follow the lead of his peers. That's how market prices work: share prices go up and they go down. A shrewd investor watches these carefully. That is why they all read Financial Times or Wall Street Journal [corr] for the daily movements.

Brian Thompson as CEO would have been the business strategy formulator - mission statement, objectives and key performance indicators, ensuring at least a 10% gain on profits year-on-year. He was obviously skilled to have risen through the ranks of PwC to fill that position. The idea that PwC is corrupt because they had a few regulators sanctions is also silly because these sanctions are all par for the course. The regulators have to be kept busy somehow. The last accountancy practice I worked for had several knuckle raps from their regulators ICAE&W. Every accountancy practice of any size in England and Wales will have their fair share of 'findings against' them. Why? Because clients complain. Sometimes those complaints are upheld and sometimes not. That's what the regulatory bodies are there for. And they like to let it be known that their presence is there. Deloittes, Grant Thornton, Mazars, KPMG, all have been rapped by the regulators on a regular basis.
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You honestly could have just summed this up by saying "Everyone does it so it's fine".

He was being investigated for insider trading. You can handwave that away in whatever way you'd like but it's still a crime.
 
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