A CEO like this is an employee. He didn’t invent private insurance. He doesn’t get the 50 billion a year. He is a symbolic scapegoat.
Every person with a 401k probably owns UHC somewhere, and they expect it to increase every year. He is merely part of the system to help make that happen.
Try going into work tomorrow and saying “boss I think our VP’s initiatives are wrong and I’m going to take us in a different direction”.
What kind of alternate reality would that be? The people heading these companies are good at rationalizing why they are not evil. Don't play their game.
The interesting question to me is where murder is justified in your ethics. You came in with absolutes, after defending him.
I’m sure you never do anything because it’s enforced by the systems you are a part of. Always an independent thinker, looking out for your personal integrity.
You’re also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi organizers. Reality check.
The serious point is that blaming individual moral character is not going to fix healthcare. We need systemic change.
This idea of there being a "game" that just magically is, while players that cannot be blamed for playing, nonsense. We need to change the system people with low individual character created for their own benefits, yes. But that's still why we have those systems in the first place, that wasn't an accident or oversight or lack of an effort of common people to try and make the world better. They fight and struggle every day, against the efforts of people the likes of which Brian Thompson played willing executive for.
> You’re also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi organizers. Reality check.
They're comparing an excuse. It would be the same correct comparison if it was about someone parking illegally. And accepting and enabling suffering and death of people for profit rather than out of fear of being shot isn't exactly better.
> I’m sure you never do anything because it’s enforced by the systems you are a part of.
I mean, I can quite confidently state I've not received tens of millions of dollars for my role in denying medical care to millions of people.
> You’re also comparing an insurance CEO to nazi organizers. Reality check.
I'm saying "I'm just a little peon in the system!" isn't a good defense. Doubly so for C-suite level folks. This wasn't some call center drone following a script.
> The serious point is that blaming individual moral character is not going to fix healthcare. We need systemic change.
Systemic change often requires individual people to be ashamed of the current setup.
Ok just to be clear: Your position is that UHC is bad because of the exceptionally poor morality of the CEO? And that if we name, shame, and threaten we will hopefully get a moral one who will turn it around?
> I'm just a little peon in the system!" isn't a good defense.
I agree. It’s not a good way to morally justify to yourself why you killed someone.
My position is that a CEO of a large publicly traded company doesn’t get to shimmy out of responsibility by going “woe is me, it’s the system’s fault!”
I think if the system keeps refusing to change something breaks. We just saw that in Syria. I think people are unsympathetic in this case because health insurers have already broken the social compact they’re supposed to operate within.
But nothing is keeping you from working for that change, certainly not the fact that so many people want it so badly that they even cheer over the murder of a healthcare CEO. It's not a dichotomy; you can do either of these things, both, or none.
Every person with a 401k probably owns UHC somewhere, and they expect it to increase every year. He is merely part of the system to help make that happen.
Try going into work tomorrow and saying “boss I think our VP’s initiatives are wrong and I’m going to take us in a different direction”.