I’ve really got swept up in this latest story from across the pond. It’s remarkable, very very now, and it responds to itself.
The CEO of a major healthcare company in the US was shot outside his hotel room in Manhattan.
In the UK we still, just, have the NHS. This is despite the Tories trying to ruin it, because there is a huge amount of money to be made if we shift to the “don’t call an ambulance!!” system in the USA where, if you slip through the cracks, you lose everything and more when something goes wrong with your health. I’ve heard Americans talking about “oh but you get delayed in your socialist system,” and yes, if it’s not considered urgent, you get delayed. I waited a whole year for varicose vein surgery. But had it been something more urgent, likely I would have been seen much quicker. If you’re rich or cautious and willing to spend, you might have health insurance too. When I had spondarthropathy as a twenty one year old taking my university finals, faced with a year on a ward or a “private” injection of steroids for about two grand, I opted for the steroids and dad paid. I had the privilege of a wealthy dad. Either way I would have been looked after, and the ward option would have been free, just costing time. The doctor wanted me in his ward. It’s a very rare condition I had, with extreme symptoms. A year of pain and virtual complete immobility while being studied, or a quick fix. I took the easy way out because I could. Three months was enough for me.
Insurance companies, we all know, are about finding the loophole that means they don’t have to pay out. The people running this system for profit are doing their best not to think about the individuals – just the bottom line. Maybe you don’t get back the flight you had to cancel, someone somewhere gets a bonus. Maybe your boiler conks out and because you were slow scheduling a free service they say it is invalid. That’s a boiler. That’s a flight. Luxuries.
In America, health is a luxury.
I’ll just say that again.
In America, health is a luxury.
If you’ve got a good job, you’ve maybe got good healthcare. If you’re rich maybe you’ve got a plan. Luigi Mangioni was from money though. And he still fell through the system. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So the CEO of a healthcare insurance racket got shot. Sure he had a family, but so did all the people who lost everything or died because of profit impulse and shareholders. The shooter, aforementioned Luigi, looks to be a well off young man who took the time to carve “Delay” and “Deny” into the bullet casings. He successfully evaded the law until he was recognised by someone in a McDonald’s way way away. They called the police. There’s a $60k reward on Crimestoppers, but it looks like the guy at McDonald’s will be ineligible on a technicality as he dialed 911. Oh the irony. I like to think Luigi was eating there under sufferance as he thought it would be anonymous ordering through a screen etc. The branch of McDonald’s is getting review bombed.
So this boy is in custody.
He has had a history of extreme back pain, and there have been operations in the past. I’m waiting to hear what fuckery he had to put up with, but there’s no doubt the man is in pain. Also too dumb to shave his head and pluck his eyebrows, grow a beard and stop wearing a mask. He hadn’t planned his safehouse and got in food until the memory was faded, or gone back hard to an old existence. He’s reactive, maybe in too much pain to think things through. And the American internet is going mad writing joke alibis for him and attacking the McDonalds because even though Luigi committed murder in cold blood, he keyed into something that everyone who has been exposed to that terrible terrible system which they want to bring over here can understand. He’s framed as a folk hero for taking on the system. Because the system is fucked. There’s the likes of Musk saying how CEOs are necessary, but they really are just creaming money off the top of the monolithic enterprises and maybe that’s ok if it just means people don’t get the flight back or the boiler fixed, because Capitalism. But bring it into healthcare and it is people’s lives vs profit. This is not a good system. There’s Michael Moore’s Sicko – it’s a bit dated, made before the Tories started trying to deconstruct the NHS and replace it with the fucked system. But it’s a clear watch.
This kid looks like he’s smart, evolved and charming. When you are in constant pain it’s hard to think, so the thoughtlines to “I’m gonna kill the CEO” are straighter. He’s done it now and he’s in the legal system. There’s going to be a machine clicking into gear to destabilise his image – lots of CEOs have a vested interest in paying to make him look bad, and by definition they are the richest people in the world because they have all your money. So the smear machine will come into play and he will answer for all his badness beyond the murder. Ideally they want him to look bestial. If he kicked a puppy as a kid, we will see someone crying about it. But this is because he will be a rallying point for some. Because actually, maybe being the CEO of one of the healthcare companies … maybe that makes you the real monster here.
His name reminds me of “Luigi’s Mansion” which is a seminal Nintendo title where you play the forgotten brother of the famous Super Mario. This forgotten member of a famous dynasty has to go into an old house full of ancient evil ghosts, and suck them away into his ghost vacuum. A lost kid, pulling ancient unobserved invisible badness out of institutions just because it’s his job.
This story will go on and on and it won’t stop being relevant.
AlBarclay 