The UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing Was Shocking, Not Surprising; Support the Family of Community Service Officer Nick Griego–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Dec. 5, 2024

Indy Digest: Dec. 5, 2024

The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson yesterday in Manhattan was shocking. Major business executives don’t often get gunned down on a street in broad daylight.

It was also awful, and wrong, and devastating to Thompson’s family, friends and co-workers.

But it was not surprising, given our federal government’s protect-guns-at-all-costs attitude, and the heinous actions UnitedHealthcare has taken in recent years,

News outlets have been exposing the extreme profit-driven shenanigans of UnitedHealthcare and other insurance companies. ProPublica, for starters, has done several damning stories, including this 2023 piece about the company’s claim-denial of Penn State student Christopher McNaughton, who “suffered from a crippling case of ulcerative colitis—an ailment that caused him to develop severe arthritis, debilitating diarrhea, numbing fatigue and life-threatening blood clots.” The company basically determined the care was unnecessary because it was costing too much. There is also this piece from October, about a company called EviCore, which UnitedHealthcare and other companies use to deny more claims with the help of AI, increasing profits in the process

It’s very interesting that “the words ‘deny,’ ‘defend’ and ‘depose’ were discovered by detectives on the shell casings found at the scene where Thompson was killed, according to news outlets, including ABC News.

Earlier today, The New York Times published a story headlined “Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO’s Killing.”

The fatal shooting on Wednesday of a top UnitedHealthcare executive, Brian Thompson, on a Manhattan sidewalk has unleashed a torrent of morbid glee from patients and others who say they have had negative experiences with health insurance companies at some of the hardest times of their lives.

It is unclear what motivated the incident or whether it was tied to Mr. Thompson’s work in the insurance industry. The police have yet to identify the shooter who is still on the loose.

But that did not stop social media commenters from leaping to conclusions and from showing a blatant lack of sympathy over the death of a man who was a husband and father of two children.

“Thoughts and deductibles to the family,” read one comment underneath a video of the shooting posted online by CNN. “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”

On TikTok, one user wrote, “I’m an ER nurse and the things I’ve seen dying patients get denied for by insurance makes me physically sick. I just can’t feel sympathy for him because of all of those patients and their families.

The dark commentary after the death of Mr. Thompson, a 50-year-old insurance executive from Maple Grove, Minn., highlighted the anger and frustration over the state of health care in America, where those with private insurance often find themselves in Kafka-esque tangles while seeking reimbursement for medical treatment and are often denied.

Meanwhile, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield earlier today cancelled a policy change that would have tied anesthesia payments for some surgeries, in some states, to an obscure metric, rather than the amount of time the anesthesia was actually needed. The Associated Press said:

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield said in a statement that its decision to backpedal resulted from “significant widespread misinformation” about the policy.

“To be clear, it never was and never will be the policy of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to not pay for medically necessary anesthesia services,” the statement said. “The proposed update to the policy was only designed to clarify the appropriateness of anesthesia consistent with well-established clinical guidelines.”

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield would have used “physician work time values,” which is published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as the metric for anesthesia limits; maternity patients and patients under the age of 22 were exempt. But Dr. Jonathan Gal, economics committee chair of the American Society for Anesthesiologists, said it’s unclear how CMS derives those values.

In mid-November, the American Society for Anesthesiologists called on Anthem to “reverse the proposal immediately,” saying in a news release that the policy would have taken effect in February in New York, Connecticut and Missouri. It’s not clear how many states in total would have been affected, as notices also were posted in Virginia and Colorado.

It’s unclear whether the change had anything to do with Thompson’s death.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Bolts magazine does a piece illustrating how ALL elections matter. For example, control of the House of Representatives (currently 220 Republicans, and 215 Democrats, not counting resignations and potential cabinet appointments) came down to a North Carolina Supreme Court election: “After securing a majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2022, Republican justices promptly overturned a ruling that had struck down GOP gerrymanders, paving the way for their party’s lawmakers to draw a new map designed to hand them several congressional districts. By then, Democrats already had no recourse outside of state courts: This U.S. Supreme Court has shut the door on complaints of partisan gerrymandering proceeding in federal courts. The maneuver paid off. … The GOP flipped three U.S. House seats, a windfall in light of that chamber’s tiny overall margin. This sequence of events, besides illustrating the potential ramifications of state judicial elections, also captures the predicament that progressive lawyers find themselves in after Donald Trump’s victory, which cements conservatives’ stronghold on federal courts for the foreseeable future.” 

• The Palm Springs Police Officers’ Association is raising funds to help the family of Community Service Officer Nick Griego, who died on Thanksgiving Day. From a news release: “Nick was on his way home to his family after working OT and protecting the residents of the Coachella Valley during the Turkey Trot. Nick was firstly a husband to Tess and a father to two little beautiful girls. Our goal as the Palm Springs Police Officer’s Association is to bring relief to families in law enforcement that have endured challenging times or tragically lost a loved one. Throughout the Palm Springs Police Officers’ Association existence, we have donated to hundreds of families, and although we will never replace the loved ones they lost, we hope our monetary donations will ease some of the current and future burden. We respectfully ask if you would be so kind as to contribute a monetary donation in this difficult time, knowing that every dollar you donate, will go to his wife, Tess, and their two daughters. … If you have questions, please contact our executive director, Jen Banford at j.banford@palmspringspoa.com or 605-228-3916.” You can also donate via this GoFundMe.

• Well, this is embarrassing. Coachella Valley resident Richard Grenell apparently made a bug push to get a choice cabinet nomination … and it did not happen. Politico reports: “As Richard Grenell made a bid after the election to be Donald Trump’s secretary of state, a flurry of social media posts from MAGA influencers started popping up, advocating for the president-elect to pick him. Around the same time, an associate of Grenell had approached conservative social media influencers, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, offering paid contracts of as much as five figures to post favorably about Grenell. One such contract, obtained by POLITICO and not previously reported, outlined that the influencer would do so during ‘peak posting times,’ that ‘content must appear genuine,’ and it could not ‘appear as an overt advertisement or promotional message.’ The proposed paid social media campaign, which the organizers told POLITICO never took off, illustrates the lengths to which people close to Grenell went to ensure he got the job. … But Trump ultimately chose Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for the coveted state job.”

• From the “Big YIKES” file comes this piece, via NBC News. “A mysterious disease with flu-like symptoms has killed dozens of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to health officials there. The unidentified illness has killed 79 people and sickened 376 as of Tuesday, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Health, Hygiene and Social Security. In a statement on X, the ministry said the disease was of ‘still unknown origin’ and had been detected in Kwango province in southwestern Congo. Reported symptoms include fever, headache, nasal congestion, cough, difficulty breathing and anemia. Local authorities told Reuters and The Associated Press that the death toll may be as high as 143. … The World Health Organization told NBC News that it is aware of reports of an unidentified disease and is working with local authorities.”

• Today’s recall news involves … Honda SUVs! USA Today says: “Honda is recalling over 200,000 SUVs in the United States due to a fuel leak concern, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The recall, which includes 205,760 vehicles, is due to the fuel filler neck tube and fuel filler pipe possibly separating, allowing fuel to leak. A fuel leak in the presence of an ignition source increases the risk of a fire, the NHTSA said. The recall affects certain 2023-24 Passport and 2023-25 Pilot vehicles, according to the NHTSA. Dealers will inspect and repair the fuel filler neck and pipe as necessary, free of charge.”

• The feds are closing down some prisons, including a California facility that’s infamous for terrible reasons. The AP reports: “The federal Bureau of Prisons is permanently closing its ‘rape club’ women’s prison in California and will idle six facilities in a sweeping realignment after years of abuse, decay and mismanagement, The Associated Press has learned. The agency informed employees and Congress on Thursday that it plans to shutter the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Calif., and … deactivate minimum-security prison camps in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. Staff and inmates are being moved to other facilities, the agency said. In a document obtained by the AP, the Bureau of Prisons said it was taking ‘decisive and strategic action’ to address ‘significant challenges, including a critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure and limited budgetary resources.’ The agency said it is not downsizing and is committed to finding positions for every affected employee. … After repeatedly promising to reform FCI Dublin and other troubled facilities, Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters is pivoting to closures and consolidation, citing inadequate staffing and staggering costs to repair aging infrastructure.”

• And finally … one last piece from the AP for today: The news org crunched the numbers to figure out how dog and cat owners voted in the presidential race. Here’s what they found: “The lead-up to the 2024 election was all about cat owners—but in the end, the dogs had their day. President-elect Donald Trump won slightly more than half of voters who own either cats or dogs, with a big assist from dog owners, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters. Dog owners were much more likely to support Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris. Cat owners, meanwhile, were split between the two candidates. About two-thirds of voters said they own a dog or cat, but pet owners don’t usually get much attention from politicians. That is, until this year, when then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s old comments about ‘childless cat ladies’ briefly became a campaign issue — and Taylor Swift signed her Instagram endorsement of Harris in September as ‘Taylor Swift Childless Cat Lady.’ Harris did end up decisively winning women who owned a cat but no dog, but those voters were a relatively small slice of the electorate. And pet owners as a whole did not seem to hold Vance’s remarks against the GOP ticket.”

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