It Matters What Brian Thompson Did for a Living

Murder is of course bad. But...

We know it matters what slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson did for a living because his defenders won’t tell us.

In death the man who was the CEO of a private health insurance corporation with the highest claim denial rate in the industry has become a man who was “working at a company.” He was just a guy with “privilege.” A “CEO” who led “one of the world’s most important companies” and people are celebrating his death because it’s a company they “don’t like.” He was “a dad,” a“father of two” who was “[murdered] because of his job.”

Well Osama Bin Laden was also a “father [murdered] because of his job.” John Wayne Gacy was a “father of two” who was “working at a company.” Generally you should be able to give us more detail than that.

If those mourning Brian Thompson are reticent to say what field he was in and how he chose to spend his life it might be because even pundits with staunchly pro business audiences have faced backlash when they shed too many crocodile tears for him. Ben Shapiro released a video expressing his horror that “the left” was celebrating the murder only to be ratioed in the comments by his own fans assuring him that it wasn’t just the left. Michael Jordan said Republicans buy sneakers too. Turns out they also get their medical claims denied.

Hatred of the private health insurance system in the United States doesn’t divide neatly between the traditional left-right spectrum. Conservative parties in the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Germany do not advocate adopting our model because our model simply doesn’t work. Life saving medical treatment is something economists call a perfectly price inelastic good, you will spend infinite cash in order to stay alive. The only beneficiary from adding a middleman who makes more money if he doesn’t pay for your treatment is the middleman who makes more money if he doesn’t pay for your treatment.

In 2020 the Congressional Budget Office undertook the most detailed study yet done on this matter and found that annually Americans waste $528 billion on administrative costs that would not exist under a single payer Medicare for All system. Every year in the United States $528 billion is hoovered up by pure waste and rent seeking with the added bonus of at least 26,000 needless deaths caused by lack of health insurance coverage. Private for profit health insurance is one of the most immoral and useless industries in a country of almost nothing but immoral and useless industries.

So with all that said of course Brian Thompson didn’t deserve to die.

But…

Well what did Chris Rock say about OJ and Nicole Brown Simpson? I’m not saying he should have killed her, but I understand. What did the movie Clerks have to say about the innocent contractors and electricians killed when the death star was blown up? They knew the risks of working there.

Of course if Brian Thompson didn’t do that job someone else would. This is an issue of systems not people.

But…

At some point you, the individual, are culpable for your actions. Brian Thompson made a choice to collect a $10 million salary setting up an AI algorithm to auto deny people’s claims. In 2023 UnitedHealthcare booked $32 billion in profit (their defenders prefer to say that UnitedHealthcare “only” had a 6% profit margin rather than giving you the big number) because they came up with a better, more efficient formula for denying more claims and killing more people. Sure if Brian Thompson didn’t live in the big house he got from killing people someone else would live in the big house they got from killing people. I would still say that guy is a piece of shit.

26 year old Luigi Mangione has been arrested and federally charged with Brian Thompson’s murder. Now here’s the thing. Brian Thompson made enemies with a lot of people, as is the nature of his job. It is entirely possible, I mean I think it’s very likely, that Luigi Mangione wasn’t the man who killed him.

But if Luigi did it’s fine anyway.

I primarily hope Luigi Mangione is found not guilty because it will make Bloomberg columnists mad. I secondarily hope he is found not guilty because I don’t think he did it. This is what it’s like having perfect politics.

The federal complaint is short on details and short on evidence. We have a photo of someone who looks like Luigi Mangione checking in to the HI New York City Hostel on the Upper West Site on November 24th. We’re told that this person checked in under the same fake ID that was found on Luigi Mangione when he was arrested. That’s about it.

We’re told that on December 4th Luigi left the HI New York City Hostel at 5:35 AM and was observed walking around outside the Hilton Midtown hotel at 5:41 AM. This is a trip that takes 13 minutes by car according to Google Maps (3-4 miles depending on the route) but he managed it in less than 6 minutes on an electric bicycle.

Brian Thompson was shot to death at 6:45 AM. The Feds allege that the shooter had time to flee the scene into central park, dump his backpack, and reemerge at west 85th and Columbus Ave at 6:58 AM. The shooter got in a taxi and entered the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal at 7:30 AM, taking a bus leaving New York City. Authorities say they found the backpack inside central park but won’t say where.

For the rest of December 4th along with the entirety of December 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Luigi Mangione’s actions and whereabouts are a mystery. On December 9th at 9:14 AM a worker at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania allegedly contacted police to report seeing Luigi Mangione, identifying him based on photos that had been released to the media.

Mangione was arrested there and found to be in possession of “a loaded 9mm pistol and a silencer consistent with the weapon used to kill the victim.” This begs the question of why you would bother dumping a backpack in Central Park if you’re not going to dump the murder weapon that ties you to the crime or the fake ID that places you in New York City. And why bother fleeing the city if you’re not trying to get away with it?

He was also found with $8,000 worth of US cash and $2,000 worth of foreign currency. In court Luigi stated that the cash had been planted on him. Supposedly he had a notebook with a rather crudely written confession that does not seem to match the writing style or level of detail shown by his twitter posts.

I don’t have definitive proof that Luigi didn’t do it. But that’s not my job. Government prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it. It’s very unfortunate how many people I see online speaking as if this is an open and shut case based on the evidence we have. Lots of people were in New York on November 24th. I certainly was. That’s not proof that I killed Brian Thompson.

The actual shooting and escape from New York City were carried out in a highly professional manner. I’ll confess to being skeptical that somebody capable of that level of planning and execution, which I am certainly not capable of, would choose to take a bus to Pennsylvania and then sit around doing nothing while holding the murder weapon and a written confession for four days. I am at least capable of not doing that.

Regardless of how the trial goes it is notable what a triumphant return vigilante justice has made to the United States. Luigi Mangione and Daniel Penny have become folk heroes for some. Liberals are not entirely off base when they express horror at this phenomenon. The blame however lies not with the public but with the government that the public no longer trusts to handle its monopoly on violence.

We have reached the two decade mark of the United States de facto legalizing white collar crime for the richest 0.1%. The U.S. department of justice has not made a major criminal white collar prosecution since Enron in 2004. The 2008 financial fraud? The opioid epidemic killing 100,000 Americans every year? None of the parties responsible for these crimes were ever prosecuted. They didn’t even give us a fall guy. Can we be shocked that at some point some people might start taking matters into their own hands? Or that some people might not be too sad when somebody else does?

Human beings do have an innate sense of fairness and we’re all looking for something approaching justice. So in the spirit of that I want to say to anyone reading this who might end up in Luigi Mangione’s jury pool just remember: you’ve never heard of jury nullification. You didn’t read this article. You’re not too familiar with the case. You didn’t make any social media posts about this (delete them). And no matter what, you find the defendant Luigi Mangione not guilty.

There can always be another folk hero in this story.