TMI Show Ep 32: Did Brian Thompson Have It Coming?

Yesterday morning the 50-year-old CEO of United Healthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot to death on the sidewalk in midtown Manhattan by an unknown assailant. Even including the reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden, it's hard to think of another high-profile murder that has been greeted with as much glee and schadenfreude by the American public.

Comments sections in news stories and social media were filled with comments about how Brian Thompson had it coming, hopefully this is the first of many, and countless jokes about the bullet that killed him being a pre-existing condition. Almost no one expressed sympathy. TMI Show co-host Ted Rall and, filling in for Manila Chan, producer Robby West, explore this remarkable phenomenon.

United Healthcare is one of the most hated big companies in the United States, in large part because it denies its customers claims at a higher percentage rate than any other insurer. Thompson, paid over $10 million a year, was a poster boy for an industry whose profit model relied upon making people sick and dead to maximize earnings. The hatred was internal as well as external: even as company executives raised their own pay, they laid off thousands of their own workers.

Adding to the intrigue, Thompson was being investigated by the Justice Department over a $15 million sale of United stock suspected as insider trading, and which caused a selloff.

What was the motivation behind the assassination? Will other healthcare executives reconsider their business practices? Or will they just hire additional security? Could this help to spark a national conversation about for-profit healthcare? One thing is for sure: it is 100% clear of that Americans of all political stripes hate the healthcare industry. Because in America, whether you have insurance or not, you don't get healthcare.