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 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....<<<Read More>>>...
