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Death of a CEO


The murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare, has been a compelling news story.  On the one hand, there was the excitement of a who-dunnit and a will-he-get-caught. On the second hand, there was and is the opportunity to pontificate about the health care and health insurance industries in the United States and their rage-producing dysfunction. UHC is the largest health insurance company in the United States. On the third hand, there is the opportunity to go "meta," to react to how other people, especially through these new-fangled social media lenses, are talking about the murder of Brian Thompson. 

THAT has become a big deal, because it turns out the head of a private health insurance company -- especially one whose rates of coverage denial seem to have risen strikingly under his command -- is not a sympathetic victim. Who'd a thought? Thompson's company has actually pioneered the use of artificial intelligence to find reasons to deny claims. Hence the social media 'jokes' about bullet wounds as a pre-existing condition, etc.  

Then there is the odd fact that his company's stock prices rose slightly in the hours after his death. Hmmmm.  

All very compelling angles. 

So here is my not-so-hot take. What I find fascinating is the get-away.  By bicycle.  Through Central Park.  It appears that every square foot of midtown Manhattan is covered by cameras, so that one has to head to the Park and its abundant green to, say, ditch a backpack. Even if Thompson were one of my loved ones and I were hot for the murderer's capture, I think I would take a moment to find "eeky" the speed with which the authorities put together comprehensive footage of the suspect's movements before he got to the greenery. 

I worked in midtown Manhattan back in the early 1980s.  Right out of law school.  And I know that if such comprehensive coverage [in the camera sense, not the insurance sense!] is true of anywhere, it is bound to be true there.  Still ... we don't seem to be getting the "plus" side of the trade off.  We've traded away privacy for security yet it is still the case that a man who commits a brazen open-air murder in the midst of all those cameras can't be quickly identified and caught. 



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