The attack on the 50-year-old executive—allegedly by the now 27-year-old Luigi Mangione—immediately sparked an outpouring of public fury not at the gunman, but at UnitedHealthcare itself.
The attack on the 50-year-old executive—allegedly by the now 27-year-old Luigi Mangione—immediately sparked an outpouring of public fury not at the gunman, but at UnitedHealthcare itself.
Hey, where do you work? - Oh I work in the health insurance industry - That’s disgusting, I am leaving.
I would absolutely have this exact interaction. Including anyone working in finance.
Are you Winnie the Pooh? Because this is blustery as fuck.
I work in health insurance, and I just can’t bear the thought that you and I might never be friends.
But looking for a job is hard, and honestly this one is really good for me. It suits my narrow skillset, and it gives me a great work-life balance, which is the main thing I’m looking for while my kids are young. I quit my more demanding oil job to take this one so I could be there for them.
But if you have some kind of plan for how I could reform the entire industry by quitting my job at the bottom rung of a middling insurance company, I’ll gladly do it. I could always go back to working in finance.
Otherwise this is all just thoughtless, impotent bluster, untempered by life experience.
In real life, most of the people who work at insurance companies are doing their best to keep the system running, because people do depend on it despite its flaws, and I don’t have any more power to change it than you do.
I’m not a ‘we won’t be friends’ person. But I do think this is a really poor response. Who you work for is one of the biggest ethical decisions you make. You take years of training and skills and you use them for 40+ hours a week to… Well, support the actions of an industry that brings misery to millions of people.
Getting a job is hard, but it’s not impossible. And you’re choosing avoiding that discomfort over making life worse for people. You may be but a tiny cog in a giant machine, but if that cog has to turn you’re part of the problem.
I know this is gonna come off as aggressive. I have no beef with you personally, and you are but one of hundreds of millions of people shrugging and working in destructive of unethical enterprises. But that shrugging is the system. Collectively the system doesn’t work without you all dedicating half your waking life to it.
I do wish you the best, but hope you’ll eventually do the hard thing. Because it’s the right thing.
You make it sound like I’m working at a concentration camp.
The reason the US healthcare industry hasn’t been completely overhauled yet is that it does still help people.
If doesn’t help enough people. It’s not good enough. It needs to change. But the harm it causes is a side effect, not the main goal.
If every cog suddenly resigned tomorrow, it would cause catastrophic and immediate harm to millions of people. Besides, that’s not how change happens.
It’s not the “right” thing to do to miss my kids’ formative years looking for another job, for absolutely no practical benefit to anyone.
The main goal is also not helping people. The goal is money. Helping people is a side effect. If those corporations were to have more difficulty finding people to work those jobs because people find them morally repugnant, then the business would do worse, and another system could take its place. As it is, you are helping to entrench their position while wailing that NOT doing that would be SO HARD!!
That doesn’t make any sense. The level of outrage that would be required to pull off what you’re describing is far higher than what would be required to change the system through other means.
If people can’t come together to vote for healthcare reform, do you honestly think there’s any chance that a workers’ strike will spontaneously break out? It’s not an actionable plan. The practical outcome of me quitting is that my life and my family’s life gets worse. That’s it. There’s no benefit to anyone.
And yeah, it is fucking hard. I’m in my 40s with crippling ADHD and a narrow skillset. My wife has a similarly severe physical handicap, so I’m working my ass off every day to give my kids a healthy, happy childhood, bringing them to daycare and school, cooking healthy meals, and trying to give them a safe, loving environment to grow up in while the world crumbles into fascism around me.
I’ve worked at “hard” jobs. I’ve woken up at dawn just to get my kids ready, just so I can work all day and pick them up at sunset, just so I can get home, cook dinner, and get them to bed, never at any point having a chance to spend a minute of quality time with them.
I’m lucky and grateful to have a job that allows me a good work-life balance.
This purity test is bullshit, and I think it comes from a place of privilege and inexperience. You’re unironically being the “Yet you live in a society. Curious!” meme right now.
Look you self important twat, I’m not saying it’s the full responsibility of every worker to personally topple the system. Idk why that is what you took from my comment. I am saying that if the gestapo couldn’t get people to work for them, it wouldn’t have been a very effective force. Same here. It doesn’t need to be a fucking strike. Get a different job. It’s that simple. “Oh but it’s hard! I don’t have any time to look for a job! I don’t have any skills!” Bullshit. There no fucking way that healthcare is the only thing in this planet that you can do. You just don’t actually care about the very real harm that is being done by your actions because it is abstracted and far away.
Well if that’s how you are, then I don’t even want to be your friend anymore.
Translation: Someone else has to be responsible for fixing everything before I will take any responsibility for my participation in the obviously corrupt and exploitive system.
You seem to have misunderstood my point. Such a plan couldn’t exist, because that’s not how change works.
Don’t worry. We won’t be friends.
Well, maybe one day. You never know.
Then stop working for Satan, and maybe you’ll be able to be their friend. Oh, wait, let’s check what else you might say first:
Gotcha, you can’t stop working for Satan because it’s suuuuch a goooood jooooooob! Fuck off and die like the people who have to deal with your industry, scum
It’s blustery? In what way?
I am disgusted by you and your entire life’s work. You are revolting in your careless approach to morality and accountability.
I do not care what you think about me or my views because your own are so clearly lacking any critical thought.
Bro, you need to touch some fucking grass.
What does that mean? To ground myself in reality and reconnect with what is truly important…?
Like not being abused by every single institution and organization in existence? That reality? To reconnect with family and friends and loving each other? That stuff that these corps care about so much?
Tell me, how does it help them to be LESS pissed off about their mutilation at corporate hands?
Why is that better?
Shake hands with the devil, don’t complain when you get burned.
That might be the edgiest thing anyone has ever said to me. After you wrote it did you immediately walk away from an explosion without looking back?
Your reaction is telling. Instead of considering my comment, you attack and redirect instead. Perhaps a bit of guilt, maybe some fear of self-reflection?
Instead of considering your badass catchphrase?
Ok, I’ll take a moment to consider it.
Yeah, I think it’s a little over the top.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Exactly. Your awesome one-liner was so powerful that it will literally keep me awake all night if I don’t find a way to cope.
Thanks for understanding.
Yes exactly. Life isn’t that black and white.
It is in some ways. This is one of them.