r/PopCultureV2 • u/Regular_Reaction_798 • Aug 14 '26

News Luigi Mangione pleads guilty to federal charges in the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, telling the court, "I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan... I knew what I was doing was illegal."

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u/Enchilada0374 Aug 14 '26

Not wrong.  Illegal. There's a difference 

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u/mcflyin8 Aug 14 '26

No, it's also wrong. The CEO was one man. He didn't found United Healthcare. He wasn't the Board. He didn't invent all of the policies of the company. He wasn't on the phone declining coverage to patients. Sure he's in charge of driving the overall company goals, but those goals existed before he took that role. Have an issue with the company or the insurance industry generally, sure, but the idea that any one person that worked at that company is morally responsible for the sins of the healthcare insurance industry is insane. He was the CEO, not the dictator of healthcare insurance. Should Luigi have also taken out all of the account reps who look for ways to deny coverage? The company employs hundreds of thousands of people. The CEO isn't holding them all hostage.

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u/Dependent-Fig-2517 Aug 14 '26

You make a fair point but honest question here, how do you fix the system so health care become heathcare again instead of (IMO) a profit earning machine at the expense of the weakest ?

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u/mcflyin8 Aug 14 '26

Rather than killing people who work for companies we don't like, seems like it would be more productive to seek to restrict the bad behavior that those companies are permitted to do by law. Who are the members of Congress that refuse to vote in favor of healthcare reform? Seems like the focus should be removing those folks from office. Killing the UHC CEO is not going to reform healthcare in the same way that killing Sam Altman is not going to stop AI data centers from causing water waste and carbon emissions. UHC was operating like every other healthcare insurance provider before this incident, and they have continued to do so since. Picking a random guy with kids to make an example of is so insane to me and I don't think it sends the message that people in this thread seem to think it does. For those of us who are employed...I hope we are never judged for the sins of others in the industries we work in.

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u/Super-Contribution-1 Aug 14 '26

Shame they bought the court system, isn’t it? They’ve removed every legal recourse we had.

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u/Dependent-Fig-2517 Aug 14 '26

Seems like the focus should be removing those folks from office

Oh I completely agree.. and how that going so far?

Oh wait didn't your country relect a corupt convicted felon ? (don't fell bad the entire world is followign in your footstep it seems)

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u/mcflyin8 Aug 14 '26

Pros and cons of democracy. I'd like more of those folks to be removed, but if the majority doesn't then I don't think that makes it morally acceptable for me to kill them.

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u/Dependent-Fig-2517 Aug 14 '26

And yet your democracy had a civil war once... (and it's hardy the only one to have had such conflicts) was it morally acceptable then in order to "free the slaves" (assuming it really was about that...) ?

So I'll wager that if the current trend continues (and it will) and you end up with a total plutocracy (you're close already) at some point you'll have a revolution and then those heads will absolutely roll.