By Michael J. Talmo January 13, 2025
On December 4, 2024, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed in New York City. Etched on the shell casings and bullets found at the crime scene were the words: “delay,” “deny,” and possibly “depose.” Five days later, police arrested Luigi Mangione in Pennsylvania and charged him with the crime.
Many members of the public didn’t have much sympathy for Thompson. One person on social media quipped, “I’d look for the killer, but vision isn’t covered under my health insurance plan.” In fact, public support for Mangione has been overwhelming, with some calling him a hero and demanding his release, as reported here and here. And while Newsweek reported that public support for Mangione has disturbed most people, it also reported that a poll conducted by NORC (National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago) found that seven out of ten Americans feel that “health insurance profits and coverage denials share the blame” for Brian Thompson’s death. ABC News further reported that as of December 24, online defense funds created for Mangione’s defense have raised over $200,000.
But as Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore correctly pointed out in this scathing article (I recommend that you read it and watch his 2007 documentary film Sicko),
“People across America are not celebrating the brutal murder of a father of two kids from Minnesota. They are screaming for help, they are telling you what’s wrong, they are saying that this system is not just and it’s not right and it cannot continue…their health insurance company is there not to help them but to deny their claim, bankrupt them with deductibles and copays, and give them the runaround until their spirit is broken and they just give up and wait to die…these insurance corporations and their executives have more blood on their hands than a thousand 9/11 terrorists.”
Speaking of terrorists, Mangione is not only being charged with murder by New York State; a laundry list of other charges has been added, which is known as “stacking charges.” He is also being charged under New York’s anti-terrorism law, which carries even stiffer penalties. In addition to Pennsylvania throwing in a few charges, Mangione is facing a federal murder charge that carries the death penalty. This also means that Mangione will have to stand trial for the same offense twice, once in state court, once in federal court, under what is called dual sovereignty, which should be declared unconstitutional because it makes a mockery of the double jeopardy clause enshrined in the Fifth Amendment.
As I see it, the powers that be are determined to make an example of Mangione for daring to kill one of their corporate elites. They also want to put the fear of God into the rest of us. Case in point: last month, on December 10, a 42-year-old Florida woman named Briana Boston was arrested and charged with “threatening to conduct an act of terrorism,” a second-degree felony that, under Florida law, carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, as reported here and here.
Boston got pissed off at her insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield, for denying her claim. She said, “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next,” to a representative on the recorded phone line. The very same day, the police were at her door. Boston explained to the detective that she was just upset, which she had every right to be, and that she doesn’t even own a firearm. She’s a wife and mother and has no previous criminal record. But it didn’t matter to the Keystone Cops who locked her up. Idiotic cases like this are a waste of tax dollars and are among the many reasons that America has more people in jail than any other nation on Earth.
Boston was later released on bail and confined to her home with GPS monitoring while awaiting trial. She is permitted to leave her home for work, medical care, weekly shopping, church, and if she needs medical care. Hopefully, Florida will either drop the charges due to public pressure or she will be found not guilty. What really irks me about this case is the blatant violation of her First Amendment right to say whatever the hell she wants to say. The courts have traditionally ruled that the only time this doesn’t apply is if there is a clear and present danger, as in someone getting in your face and threatening you or if they are actually planning to do something illegal. In Boston’s case, she was just talking. Utterances aren’t conduct.
But no matter what they try to do to Luigi Mangione and Briana Boston, the cold hard truth remains: America’s healthcare system isn’t merely broken; it’s shattered. So, let’s open our eyes, get the cobwebs out of our brains, and not try to put lipstick on a pig. Here are the real facts:
AJMC (American Journal of Managed Care), 2023 study:
“The United States has the highest infant and maternal mortality rates out of any other high-income country.”
“The United States has lower life expectancy and much worse health outcomes than other countries.” 80.4 years, OECD average. USA average: 77 years. OECD, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, consists of 38 wealthy countries.
“The US obesity rate (42.8) was almost twice as high as the OECD average (25); obesity drives chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. Accordingly, US residents had the highest rates of chronic conditions.”
“The United States also had the highest rate of avoidable deaths, almost 350 per 100,000 compared with the OECD average of 225 per 100,000.”
New York Post 2024 report:
“Life expectancy in the US already falls behind many other developed countries, putting us in 49th place in global rankings in 2022 — but a new report says we’ll drop even further to 66th place in 2050.”
World Population Review Report:
“Medical bankruptcy is almost unheard of outside of the United States.” Bankruptcies due to medical bills occur in only three other countries: 20% in Canada, 10% in the U.K., and 10% in Australia. But that’s nothing compared to the US, where 70% of bankruptcies are due to medical bills. Of course, unlike the US, all three of the aforementioned countries have universal healthcare. But as explained here, here, and here, years of underfunding and mismanagement by conservative governments have made them much less efficient, causing long waiting periods and cost gaps in care.
The Lancet 2020 study:
“Although healthcare expenditure per capita is higher for the United States than any other country, over 37 million Americans are entirely without health insurance and 41 million more have inadequate access to care…we calculate that a single-payer, universal healthcare system is likely to lead to a 13% savings in national healthcare expenditure, equivalent to over $450 billion annually…we estimate that ensuring healthcare access for all Americans would save over 68,000 lives and 1.73 million life-years every year:”
The Commonwealth Fund 2020 study:
“The U.S. has the highest suicide rate of any wealthy nation.”
The U.S. has the highest rate of people with multiple chronic conditions…”
“Americans see physicians less often than people in most other countries and have among the lowest rate of practicing physicians and hospital beds per 1,000 population.”
“Health care spending, both per person and as a share of GDP, continues to be far higher in the United States than in other high-income countries. Yet the U.S. is the only country that doesn’t have universal health coverage.”
Let that sink in your head, folks: the United States of America, the wealthiest nation on this planet, to its utter shame, is the only OECD member that doesn’t have universal healthcare. Not only that, as reported here, here, and here, the US doesn’t even recognize healthcare as a human right.
Providing comprehensive health coverage free at the point of service to all of a nation’s citizens from cradle to grave that is collectively funded via our tax dollars in the same way that police and fire departments are funded is universal healthcare. It would replace the vile, fragmented patchwork system that we have today and put an end to employer-provided healthcare. Under a universal healthcare system, if you lose your job, you won’t lose your healthcare. Under a universal healthcare system, the horror stories about denial of care and skyrocketing health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs, as reported here, here, and here, that are continuing to rise as reported here and here, will become a thing of the past. CBS News further reported that AI, as in cold, unfeeling computers, are being used to deny people care along with unqualified personnel. That too will end.
There are different kinds of universal healthcare systems: socialized medicine, where medical personnel, hospitals, and labs are government employees. Great Britain, Spain, and Cuba have this system; single-payer healthcare where the doctors, hospitals, and labs are all private, and the government, as the insurance company, pays the bills. Canada and Denmark are among the countries that have this system. There are also countries that have universal healthcare systems that are a mix of private and government insurance, like Italy and France. But the health insurance companies in these countries are non-profit and heavily regulated like utilities.
Oddly enough, the US has socialized medicine with the VA, which is only available to veterans, active- duty military personnel, and, in some cases, their spouses. Medicare and Medicaid are single-payer healthcare systems that are only available to people over 65 and to the very poor. In other words, they aren’t available to everyone and don’t provide the full care they should due to being underfunded and because the for-profit health insurance lobby makes sure its greedy little fingers are in the pie.
For example, instead of Medicare covering 100 percent of our medical expenses, it usually only covers 80 percent. You have to get private supplemental insurance known as Medigap to cover the other 20 percent, which costs on average over $200 per month. But here’s the catch: Medigap still doesn’t cover all of your medical expenses and can deny you care. Plus, you’re also paying the now $185. per month premium for Medicare itself, along with the deductibles and co-pays.
Bottom line: All US health insurance policies are Swiss cheese plans that can stick you with high out-of-pocket costs and increasingly expensive premiums. And that includes Medicare Advantage plans, or Medicare Part C, created under President George W. Bush.
As reported in Newsweek, the federal government subsidizes for-profit insurance companies to get people off of Medicare and lure them into far worse Part C programs. During annual enrollment periods, they carpet-bomb us with ads that talk to us like we’re complete idiots. On the front end, they offer lots of great perks: no monthly premiums, food subsidies, free gym memberships, etc. But the catch is on the back end: inadequate networks of doctors and hospitals, even more frequent denial of care when you need it most, longer wait times to get care, and mega out-of-pocket costs. In other words, the government is giving for-profit health insurance companies a shitload of money so they can screw us worse than they’re already screwing us. There is a better way, people.
Insurance is about the spreading of risk by taking in a lot more money than is paid out so there’s enough to cover the people who need it. The larger the pool of people, the cheaper the insurance, which is why the numerous plans people are currently under, even without the corruption and greed, drives up the cost. With a population of over 334 million, a single-payer healthcare system that covers everyone would be very cheap compared to Canada and European nations that have much smaller populations.
We could make a national healthcare system even cheaper by covering alternative healing systems like acupuncture, massage, nutrition, naturopathy, orthomolecular psychiatry, environmental medicine, IGM, craniosacral therapy, etc., because people would remain healthier. This would greatly reduce the need for surgery and other costly high-tech medical interventions. It would also be a boon to the economy by putting more money into the pockets of us commoners.
So, why don’t we have universal healthcare? Why have previous attempts to implement it failed? As explained in this 2024 Common Dreams article, the reason in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was racism. White Southern Democrats (later to become Republicans) in Congress were terrified at the thought of Black people getting health care from White people’s tax dollars.
A leading opponent of universal healthcare was Frederick Hoffman (1865-1946), a German immigrant and senior executive for Prudential Insurance. Southern politicians hailed him as a pioneer in the field of “scientific racism,” an obvious oxymoron that was a lame attempt to disguise bigotry as science. Hoffman believed that Black people, who no longer had slave masters to take care of them, were so dumb and physically inferior to White folks “that if they were simply deprived of healthcare the entire race would die out in a few generations.” Unfortunately, attempts to dress up bigotry as science to justify oppression and discrimination against minorities continue to this day and are currently being directed against factions of the LGBTQ community.
But since the 1920s, the main opposition to universal healthcare has been corporate greed. In the early 1970s this went on steroids with the Powell Memo. It was drafted at the request of the US Chamber of Commerce by Lewis F. Powell Jr. (1907-1998) in 1971 while he was a corporate lawyer and head of the American Bar Association. One year later, Powell was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon (1913-1994).
As explained in this video, Powell’s memo claimed that America’s economic system was being attacked by consumer, labor, and environmental groups and that it was time to fight back. It was distributed to large businesses and trade associations nationwide. This resulted in the creation of a massive political action industry that employed legions of lobbyists that descended on state capitals and on the federal government to line the pockets of politicians who were willing to play ball. The result was the creation of a second Gilded Age where a small elite control enormous amounts of wealth and political power.
As a result, most of our state and federal legislators, governors, and US presidents have sold out to these billionaire robber barons. Our state and federal courts, including the US Supreme Court, have also been captured, as reported in Time Magazine. Great judges of the past have been replaced by legions of incompetent reactionaries who aren’t fit to judge a pie-eating contest.
This is why we don’t have universal healthcare. This is why wages have stagnated to the point where low-income people can’t get by even if they work two or three jobs. This is why so many Americans have no savings and live paycheck to paycheck. This is why Social Security isn’t able to pay retirees enough money to live on in most cases. And this is why, to quote Thom Hartmann, “The for-profit health insurance industry has attached itself to us like a giant, bloodsucking tick.”
The wealthy elite have also captured much of the mainstream media. Three examples: megabillionaire Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Billionaire Rupert Murdoch owns hundreds of media outlets around the world, including Fox News, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The Times in London. Elon Musk owns Twitter. It’s because of this, along with all of the right-wing think tanks, organizations, and podcasts that spew out an endless sea of propaganda about the evils of universal healthcare that 53% of Americans still prefer privately run healthcare. But 72% of Democrats support government-run healthcare as opposed to only 13% of Republicans. Decades of corporate propaganda have befuddled, misled, and divided Americans so that they no longer share a collective reality when it comes to the obvious.
Are you starting to see the con in CONservative Republicans and centrist voters? Rich people who don’t need health insurance are telling poor and middle-class people that they don’t need something that they really need. When it comes to hypocrisy, these turd blossoms take the entire bakery.
Here are but three of the bogus arguments that the wealthy use to mislead people:
Big lie: Universal healthcare is too expensive. How are we going to pay for it?
Fact: Notice that conservative politicians never ask this question when it comes to military spending or fighting imperial wars in some God-forsaken corner of the planet. Money is no object then.
Big lie: A universal healthcare program will make our taxes go up.
Fact: We Americans are paying much higher taxes than other countries. But all of that extra dough we’re shelling out isn’t called taxes. It’s called premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-network costs. Marketing and advertising, as in all of the commercials run by various health insurance companies on TV, along with obscenely high salaries for CEOs and other executives, also drive up costs. Another factor is large office overheads for doctors who have to deal with the plethora of different companies in terms of paperwork, haggling with them when they deny care, and having to get their permission to treat patients. Again, these things drive up costs. Yep, folks, you’re paying a whole lot more in taxes under our current system and getting a whole lot less.
Big lie: America has the best healthcare system in the world.
Fact: Sure it is. If you’re a multimillionaire or a billionaire. In other words, the problem isn’t the quality of medical care. The problem is having access to it due to cost.
Big lie: universal healthcare is socialism.
Fact: This is the dumbest argument of all. Socialism is government ownership and control of institutions, natural resources, and industry–it can be dictatorial or democratic, like capitalism, which is private ownership and control of these things. Another scary buzzword is communism, which is ownership and control of the aforementioned by the people directly and collectively, which has never existed anywhere except in small primitive tribal societies and in the imagination of Karl Marx (1818-1883). The old Soviet Union wasn’t communist or socialist–it was a dictatorship.
All governments, including our own, are a mix of capitalism and socialism. Our fire departments, police departments, public schools, roads, armed forces, and the US post office are all socialist institutions paid for collectively with our tax dollars. Thus, we are all socialists. Yet, conservatives can’t stand the idea of paying taxes for someone else’s health care even though they’re paying way more for private health insurance and in the costs to society for not covering everyone. But the socialist mantra really isn’t about healthcare. Like the words groomer, pedophile, libtard, etc., it’s a buzzword to invoke emotional reactions and prevent us from rationally talking to each other. By keeping us divided and fighting amongst ourselves, the super wealthy, the real enemy, get to sneak out the backdoor with their loot. Or should I say, our loot.
The facts are crystal clear, folks. Universal healthcare is what we need. Free at the point of service. Everybody in and nobody out. If you’re against that, especially if you don’t have a pot to piss in, then your head is so far up your ass that even the Jaws of Life might not be able to extract it.
Simply stated: we must stop listening to cranks and shills who will continue to try to scare us into maintaining the current inefficient and grotesque for-profit health insurance industry. Because if we do continue to listen to them and allow them to divide us and manipulate us into fighting amongst ourselves, millions of us will continue to suffer and needlessly die.