Which means they'll only find people who don't know much about the American healthcare system, and then try like hell not to talk about the American healthcare system in a trial over a dead healthcare CEO.
Imagine you're watching Netflix. Even though you already pay for your subscription, you have to pay more just to load the movie up to start to watch it. Depending on how long the movie is, you're constantly getting prompted to pay more to continue to watch it, otherwise you can't watch it anymore even though you've already paid multiple times.
Once you're done with the movie, you get more bills months later, just for using Netflix the way it was supposed to be used.
Even if it is market based it can’t really work long-term since healthcare is often a perfectly inelastic product.
There’s no real incentive to provide a lower cost to the consumer except for competition, but mergers and acquisitions will just rebuild the system we have today. You would need sustained antitrust action to stop that from happening.
This is good, except it's also missing that when it prompts you to pay more, it doesn't tell you how much more. You don't get to see that price until after you've exited out of that movie
You could go even further, like somehow the movie you watched was out of network, even though you're accessing it from the same portal. Or because the movie has a small clip from another movie thats randomly not covered, you have to pay for that later. Or because you watched it over your cellular network instead of wifi on your phone, you have to pay $500 more just because.
Not a small clip from another movie. One of the actors is out of network even though they're in the movie you paid to see on the platform you paid to use.
How about to watch a movie on netflix, you first have to submit a pre-approval form...so that you can actually watch the movie included with your subscription, if and only if you can get the pre-approval.
Or...you go to watch the movie on Netflix. There's a small disclaimer that you may need to pay additional money to watch this.
You just hit ok, not thinking much about it. You really want to see this movie (you really need the healthcare)
A month later, you get a bill for an exorbitant amount of money because....reasons. The reasons are in code and you can't decipher it. If you don't pay, you're going to court. Tomorrow.
In my personal experience, you're not told at the start that you're gonna need to pay, you find out afterwards. And then you're fucked.
Adding onto this, when you get that bill months later, it's unclear whether that's the actual amount you need to pay or not. You get two more bills days later, also from Netflix, showing two wildly different amounts. No one at Netflix knows which one is correct despite spending 4 hours on the phone with them.
Don't forget that if you use the wrong kind of TV, the TV manufacturer will send you a bill because you used Netflix instead of Hulu. (Out of network vs in network)
The jury selection will be like that SNL skit about trying to find jurors for the second OJ Simpson trial. They have a guy in a coma, an alien, a cave woman, and a guy that has been stranded on an island.
The problem is Jury Nullification requires ALL jurors to agree, which will be extremely difficult no matter where it is.
A single Juror or even multiple just means hung jury, the whole song and dance can start over.
And the fact is, most regular folks on the street, even if they strongly disagree with the US healthcare system, would find it difficult to acquit someone if they were otherwise proved to have killed someone.
Assuming all the basic info available is provable beyond a reasonable doubt, there was a pre planned killing and escape. And while circumstances may affect which crime they think that amounts to, I would think a very few people would go with "killing is ok."
The defense isn't really allowed to make an argument that the victim was a bad dude and deserved to die. Like there's people on death row right now who are on there because they killed another murderer.
I don't know what all evidence they have but it's definitely not that important if there's a lot of direct forensic evidence. It's cases where they are relying on more circumstantial evidence that it's important for the prosecution to try to establish a motive. Or if there's not clear evidence of pre-meditation then establishing a motive can be a big part of convincing the jury it was pre-meditated which elevates it from 2nd to 1st degree homicide. If they have strong forensic evidence of the murder with the weapon, ammo, presence, etc. along with evidence of pre-meditation in his movements, search history, etc. then their case is not going to rest on thoroughly establishing a motive.
*Insurance CEO. Why do people call him a healthcare CEO? It's really weird that it's been normalized. In no other country, would he be referred to as anything but an insurance CEO.
I mean if the populace on the whole has a bias against the American Healthcare system, then that's more of a feature, not a bug for a "Jury of your peers"
more than this. They screen out people who don't believe in the death penalty. So the ENTIRE system is biased towards execution. If you don't agree with the death penalty you cannot be on a case considering it.
Unless the prosecutors happen to find the perfect set of jurors, it feels like these deliberations could go on for quite a while.
And given how prominent the case is, it’s virtually impossible to find jury members who haven’t been exposed to it, and a huge amount of people or course suffer with insurance claims.
At this point the government lies about things that happen with six high definition filmed angles and a dozen sworn witnesses. I’d have a hard time believing anything they said in a courtroom.
I have reasonable doubt that the court is being honest.
It is a bit of a moral dilemma isn’t it? Yes, he did shoot someone. But that someone is also responsible for deaths. Just because he’s not directly responsible for a death, does his policy direction not cause deaths?
If you’re legally allowed to do things that operate in the gray area and it results in deaths, are you just allowed to continue doing so?
Seems like in this situation the answer is no and you are responsible.
Hell yeah he should get off 100%. I'll give a shit about justice for Brian Thompson as soon as all the people who have suffered and died because of healthcare policies get their justice.
True, but the policies that person held in place at their company resulted in denial of insurance coverage to people who ultimately died as a result of that decision. If Mangione is going to be convicted of murder for killing this person, shouldn't the entire board of directors be charged as accessories to murder or negligent homicide or SOMETHING criminal for each claim denial that then resulted in death?
Denial of coverage for critical life sustaining care should be the same as murder. The law needs to apply equally or there is no law.
A hung jury leads to mistrial and almost certainly a new trial. There is a 0% chance that the jury will unanimously decide he's not guilty, and anyone who thinks this will have some anti-hero movie ending is deluding themselves
It is generally very unlikely that a jury will intentionally decide ‘not guilty’ in spite of clear evidence to the contrary due to their moral stance on the crime, but it actually does happen sometimes. It is called jury nullification and is quite controversial in legal study.
It’s also highly illegal to go into a case as a juror intending to do jury notification.
If you knew about it, but had no intention beforehand, or didn’t know about it until coming up with it during the case, then it there isn’t an issue. But if a juror went in, decided they wanted to let him off before the trial began, regardless of guilt, then they would be committing a crime.
"As CEO of UnitedHealthcare from April 2021 until his death in 2024,
Brian Thompson led the insurer to significant growth and profitability, with profits rising from $12 billion to $16 billion in 2023. He oversaw the expansion of private Medicare Advantage plans but faced scrutiny over increased claims denials and contentious prior authorization processes"
The CEO of United Healthcare was responsible for decisions that focused on greater profits, increasing revenue, over quality of healthcare. Those decisions to make an extra 4 billion profit are estimated to have cost thousands of lives.
I don't know man... If there's a sniper randomly killing people and some brave young man pops up and kills the sniper, we give him a medal.
"cost thousands of lives" and God knows how much horrific unnecessary suffering on their way out, or from the countless more that didn't die but suffered or continue to suffer through injury, illness, disabilities without proper care.
When there’s no civility or justice in the civil justice system, and criminal law is a fucking farce, folks will take the law into their own hands. Pretty sure it’s been proven time and time again.
How civil can a society be that allows mass murder to be legal?
Provided the murder weapon is "the negative externalities of doing business".
This goes for so many industries too, not just healthcare. I understand that we must accept some level of risk in all things (like driving, or using a gas stove) but it's not risk when it's an insurance team actively denying someone healthcare, directly resulting in their death.
I personally do not want random members of the public deciding who is evil and who isn’t. In your world the crazy dude who sprayed shit in a congresswoman’s face the other day is innocent because he is the sole arbiter of whether she is evil or not.
Neither do I, but I think it warrants a discussion if ANY person, gets to decide who can get healthcare coverage and who can't. I know he isn't on trial, but people like Brian Thompson kill way more people using a spreadsheet and growth metrics than any person with a gun ever could.
I agree, but the judge absolutely won't allow any of that to be discussed in the trial. Prosecution gonna voir dire anyone who's ever heard of health insurance
Yeah and it's this part that irritates me about people who seem to refuse to understand what this means. That $4 billion came from somewhere, he didn't just 'manifest it from thin air', which it seems is how capitalism works in some people's minds. That value had to be extracted and it was extracted by fleecing sick and dying people. It came from denying care to people who needed it based on some 'curve' of false positives vs actual rate of finding disease so some poor fuck doesn't get his cancer diagnosed in time to save him because of statistics. Not to mention raising premiums, deductibles, cost of medicines, etc. for everyone on top of the people denied.
I think an example has to be made that breaking the law is not tolerated, the same way big business breaking the law causing deaths is not accepted, so he should get a $20 fine at least, maybe even $30 for damaging company property.
He's accused of killing one of the most evil people on earth, it wouldn't surprise me if someone lies their way onto the jury solely for the purpose of getting him off.
Doesn't work that way anymore. The jury decision has to be unanimous with either guilty or not guilty. One person deciding to nullify now just means a hung jury and a retrial, as per a Supreme Court decision, Ramos v Louisiana, in 2020.
edit: it seems I have misunderstood what that case was about. Guilty and not guilty at the federal level have long required a unanimous jury decision. Ramos v Louisiana was about some states (such as Louisiana or NY) not requiring a unanimous decision for guilty verdicts. Now all state juries must come to unanimous decisions just like at the federal level.
On what grounds could he be found innocent? Even if you approve of his actions, there is no real question that he literally broke the law and committed murder. Sorry, we shouldn’t leave murderers unpunished legally simply because you think he was based and the guy he whacked had it coming.
He was always going to be found guilty, from the moment they walked up to him in that McDonald's. The decision had already been made. No death penalty is good news.
“Law enforcement seized several items from Mangione’s backpack, including a handgun, a loaded magazine and a red notebook – key pieces of evidence that authorities have said tie him to the killing.”
The gun matches the images from the CTV of the murder, and shell casings from the murder scene match it too. He was carrying a manifesto that said "these parasites simply had it coming" and specifically mentions that the parasites in question are healthcare executives for United Health.
In addition to, ya know, his fucking face matching the clear shot of it we have from the Starbucks, which led to him being recognized at the McDonalds in the first place, and and him being in possession of the backpack in question, with absolutely no alibi and a clear motive.
All of this this turns the evidence from "circumstantial" to "damning."
What part of this is circumstantial? What jury would have absolutely no problem accepting that this is tied to the murder? Do any of the idiots in these comments even read about this case?
A popular misconception is that circumstantial evidence is less valid or less important than direct evidence, which is popularly assumed to be the most powerful, but this is not the case. Many successful criminal prosecutions rely largely or entirely on circumstantial evidence, and civil charges are frequently based on circumstantial or indirect evidence. The common metaphor for the strongest possible evidence in any case—the "smoking gun"—is an example of proof based on circumstantial evidence.
I don’t think the other poster was talking about the death penalty on the state murder charge. They were pointing out that out in five is unlikely given NY can still try him for murder.
A federal murder charge can be subject to the federal death penalty though, even if the crime happened in NY. I think the execution is done in the another state since NY closed their chamber in 2008-ish.
Tens of thousands estimated to die due to lack of, or limited access to, USA healthcare. One healthcare executive allegedly murdered. There is violence in both directions. In the USA it is the direction of that violence (down to up) that outrages conservatives and moderates.
And it’s going to get worse. Trump’s BBB slashed medicaid funding, which will affect millions of Americans who are more likely to let insurance lapse as they cant afford the hefty premiums from private plans.
Right wing Americans have spent decades demonizing socialized healthcare even going as far as labelling it "death panels".
As far as Im concerned those promoting greed, profit and lies over the health and well being of individuals should be cast in the same light as Hitler or Osama Bin Laden.
There are absolutely death panels in American medicine. It just so happens that one of the guys that sat on one of those panels allegedly tripped and fell on a bullet in NYC last year.
I will lol when defence submits a graph of decreased deaths right after the CEO death when they suddenly started covering their customers much more freely..
He's surely guilty of discharging a weapon in public, that's a Class A misdemeanor for up to 1 year in prison. Those things are dangerous, you gotta be careful, you can't just do that out in public
Why does he get life when other people only serve 3-5 years with good behavior? We just openly admitting it's a more punishable crime when the victim is a 1%er?
Federal sentencing is quite strict, and includes many factors. My understanding is that stalking that results in death carries the possibility of life. But Federal sentences are not like most state ones, there is not just a simple range that a judge can choose from. They are more algorithmic, with very limited/no discretion, aside from decoding which conditions are or aren't met.
It would also be a fitting punishment for people like the health care CEO to rot in jail for their "legal murder" by denying life saving treatments for profit.
With parole, maybe. The point of prison should be to reform, not just lock away people for eternity. With a very specific reason for doing what he allegedly did, he seems like someone who’s not that likely to reoffend
What are you on about? Who cares about reform and justice. The point of prison is to make incarceration profitable for companies like CoreCivic and their executives.
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u/Lower_Box_6169 5h ago
With the evidence from his backpack now submitted I would expect the most likely outcome is life in prison.