Fear in the C-Suite after UnitedHealthcare CEO gunned down

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/11/business/ceo-shooting-unitedhealth-security/index.html

by ____H____ • 2 years ago

20 34 2 years ago

fxtentacle3• 2 years ago

"CEOs don’t want to live in a world where they go to their son’s baseball game and there must be security present,"

I have a pretty easy solution for that, but it might reduce profits: Just behave in a way so that your fellow citizens don't hate you?

If people demonstrate by shouting your company name while carrying coffins around - which is what happened earlier this year when United Healthcare started using AI to reject claims - then that probably means that your actions have made you unpopular.

acdha3• 2 years ago

Yes - there’s always some risk of theft, extortion, etc. but this case resonated so strongly because so many Americans have had life-altering insurance denials. One survey I saw had it at 13% of the population saying they knew someone who died because of a denial:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/268094/millions-lost-someone-co...

Whether or not you think that’s fair, that’s a huge number of people with the basis for a serious grudge. Since we’ve made it easier to get guns than healthcare, I’d expect copycats - especially after people see how much it struck a nerve.

reverendsteveii3• 2 years ago

13% + 1

They didn't cover my grandmother's mammogram

They didn't cover her chemo

They didn't cover the pain and anxiety meds for her palliative care

She died of cancer over the course of two years. Insurance made sure that she couldn't detect it early, treat it, or manage her pain and terror. As far as I'm concerned, they caused her death directly and made it as horrible as possible.

dr_kiszonka2• 2 years ago

Since we’ve made it easier to get guns than healthcare

This is such a great line! On the bright side, perhaps these big companies will now start lobbying for more reasonable gun laws.

basementcat• 2 years ago

There is a free market solution to this. If the cost (including externalities) of 24/7 armed security is worth the increase in shareholder value, then by all means do it. If not, don't.

fxtentacle3• 2 years ago

I agree. They'll probably reduce the number of claims they deny until the cost to prevent the next CEO from getting murdered is perfectly balanced with the increased profits caused by unethically denied claims. If you're a true believer in the markets, your CEOs live is just another line item to be optimised.

reverendsteveii3• 2 years ago

Nah they thought they were just gonna do whatever they wanted to forever no matter who got hurt. The rich and powerful always believe that, and they're usually 100% correct right up until the moment where they're 100% incorrect.

trod1234• 2 years ago

I suppose that would depend on your working definition of correctness.

If correct means its legally unenforceable and practical and you only take that into consideration in isolation, then yes, right up until logarithmic error occurs, as you say.

The brass verdict is not a new concept, you see it show up in movies all the time like for example, The Beekeeper with Jason Statham.

Unfortunately it is a fairly sound and established fact that violence happens more often when law fails to serve its primary function for the people.

In a "rule of law", non-violent conflict management takes place. This is one of its primary purposes.

When the requirements for a "rule of law" degrade into a "rule by law" regardless of what members of such systems may claim (people may be delusional,blind, or lie), through corruption or otherwise, these things inevitably occur since there is no other means to resolve conflict.

This may just be one more example where business people win so much that they lose.

When someone is at the top of a company, you are responsible not only for your actions, but for those under you as well.

People in those positions must always be vigilant to inaction more than action, including those actions of others who are under your purview because inaction or failure to oversee is an action itself and a choice that is favored by many absent any information under many common management styles today.

This is a sad story, but the news rarely covers anything other than fire flood or blood. If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead, or so the newsies say.

stevage• 2 years ago

Probably not that easy in a country as divided as the US. Many actions will be hated by 50% of the country whichever way you go.

brokenmachine• 2 years ago

Nobody hates Flavor Flav.

fxtentacle3• 2 years ago

Yes, people might not agree on what's best. But I don't think anyone feels like they can surely get away with murder. That means for them to decide to kill someone, they themselves are also sacrificing their own future. People will only do that for a cause that they truly care about. And while people are divided, on almost all issues they don't hate the other side enough that they'd be willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause.

You need to do something uniquely unpopular for receiving that intensity of hate. Also, it seems like despite the divide, most people agree on their hatred for insurance companies?

anacrolix• 2 years ago

Fuck, that's awful. I didn't know why they were so hated and now I do.

Qem• 2 years ago

C-Suite became the new nobility.

sschueller• 2 years ago

They sure behave like it. Laws don't seem to apply to them as they do to the rest of the population.

neverartful3• 2 years ago

Not a good place to be while Madame Defarge is still knitting.

arresin• 2 years ago

Says more about the state of their conscious’ than any actual danger.

bell-cot• 2 years ago

It'd be nice to see a bit of perspective on the sorts of corporate big shots now at risk - vs. the article's blanket FUD, and subtle equating of "corporate" and "Fortune 500-ish".

I recall similar simplistic FUD after the 9/11 attacks. From reading the articles back then, you'd have assumed that the top brass of Pete's Porta-Potty & Septic Service had all fled their 2-story HQ building, for fear that a 747 was going to crash into it at any moment.

EDIT: Also never mentioned is that a whole lotta power-hungry, rabble-rousing, and less-than-saintly politicians will be taking their oaths of office in the next month or so. Might some of them have noticed the hot new trend of publicly hating certain sorts of corporations and executives? And be busy thinking about ways in which they could "surf the wave" - legally, using their official powers - and advance their political careers thereby?

dr_kiszonka2• 2 years ago

"Healthcare is the target now but who’s next?”

Banking? Maybe Oil? Big tech?

(Please don't kill anyone.)

jhallenworld2• 2 years ago

Actually I'm amazed that a gun CEO hasn't been hit yet. Some depressed person kills your daughter in a mass shooting then kills himself.. where would you go for justice?

capybaraStorm2• 2 years ago

I would probably go for a sob story about why a right-wing conspiracy theorist with a talk show caused me $1B in damages by saying nonsense 99.9% of the US and none of my employers believe. While simultaneously using the notoriety created by said loon to beg for money for cancer treatment.

jhallenworld2• 2 years ago

I don't see why we should care:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/leaked-video-sh...

I understand that they are trying to fight greed in the rest of the healthcare system, but really their profits do nothing for anybody's health.

neverartful3• 2 years ago

A for-profit corporation will have financial incentive to screw over people when they're already down. This is why I don't understand why we don't have more mutual health insurance companies or not-for-profit corporations for health care insurance.

JohnFen2• 2 years ago

they are trying to fight greed in the rest of the healthcare

But they're not trying to reduce the amount of greed in healthcare, they just want to be the only ones being greedy enough to actively harm people for profit.

Fear in the C-Suite after UnitedHealthcare CEO gunned down

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