December 6, 2024 ❧ UnitedHealth’s CEO gets shot, the French government collapses, and RFK is at it again

Plus: Bad news for Elon Musk, ending capital punishment in Indiana, a special poem, and smelly bearcats   

Who showed you how to read the news? Tell ‘em Current Affairs did it.

AROUND THE STATES

❧ By now, you’ve surely seen that UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead outside an investor conference in New York City on Wednesday. As of Friday morning, the shooter is still at large and unidentified. However, it seems increasingly likely that the shooter was motivated by fury at the predations of the health insurance industry. The bullet shell casings left behind at the scene were emblazoned with the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose,” which refers to the tactics companies like United use to deny coverage to patients: “delay paying claims, deny valid claims in whole or part, and defend their actions by forcing claimants to enter litigation.” (It may also be a reference to the 2010 book Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It, which covers these topics in detail.)

The shooter was, apparently, someone who owns a black hoodie.

That doesn’t really narrow it down. (Image: NYPD via Slate)

While we don’t condone violence against any human being, the health insurance industry and the for-profit healthcare system at large are responsible for incalculably greater human death and misery than this lone gunman could dream of. In the aftermath of the shooting, social media users have pointed out that United, which serves 50 million people and is worth more than $562 billion, denies a third of claims—twice as many as the average health insurance company. United is also being sued for intentionally using an error-prone AI algorithm to deny valid claims by Medicare Advantage patients struggling with debilitating diseases. As we wrote last year when we covered this monstrous scam in a briefing, “It allows them to save millions of dollars by denying claims. They don’t care if their patients suffer—or go into crippling medical debt—as a result.”

(Data: LendingTree/ValuePenguin. Circle added for emphasis.)

This may help to explain why, across the political spectrum, few people seem to be shedding tears for Thompson. When UnitedHealth announced his death over Facebook, the vast majority of those who reacted did so with laughing emojis. On TikTok, people cracked jokes about how their “condolences are out-of-network.” Others have responded to his death by sharing their own horror stories from dealing with the health insurance industry—and there’s no shortage of them. After all, more than half of Americans say they struggle to pay for their healthcare. The lack of sympathy for Thompson was hardly confined to the Left—if you look in the comments of conservative newspapers like the New York Post or the Daily Mail, you’ll find that most of the top comments (including one from a person who calls themselves “Progressivesarenuts”) are filled with loathing for the industry’s profiteering.

If any of these commenters happen to be reading this, Current Affairs is looking for pitches! (Top two screenshots from the New York Post, bottom from the Daily Mail.)

There are more constructive ways of dealing with this problem than violence—like creating a single-payer healthcare system or holding companies and their executives legally responsible for their predatory practices. But by and large, both of the major political parties have taken these solutions off the table. (Kamala Harris didn’t have a policy to reduce the cost of insurance beyond some vague platitudes, and Donald Trump is promising to enact policies that will kick millions more people off theirs.) This assassination has made clear that America is bursting at the seams with resentment towards the healthcare system. It is up to our leaders to harness that resentment and channel it into something productive.

In other news...

• Speaking of sinister healthcare practices, the company Anthem recently had a plan to place time limits on the amount of anesthetic surgery patients could get on their insurance plans. As journalist Helen Santoro writes, this would mean that “a surprise medical bill could be waiting for you when you wake up in the recovery room” after a procedure, if it took longer than what the insurance company approved. But on Thursday—shortly after the Thompson assassination—the company abruptly reversed course and announced that it would not  be pursuing this plan after all. As we know, correlation doesn’t prove causation, and there’s no direct evidence that one event was a reaction to the other. But the timing’s certainly interesting. (The Lever)
  
  
• Former Marine Daniel Penny is on trial after senselessly choking a homeless Black man, Jordan Neely, to death on the New York subway last year while Neely was having a mental health episode. Penny had been charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide, but a judge has just dismissed the former, more severe charge after the jury reached a deadlock. Jurors will now need to review videos from bystanders, testimony from the medical examiner, and criminal definitions of “recklessness” and “negligence,” before voting on the second and less severe charge. This is a rapidly developing story, so stay tuned. (Associated Press)

PAST AFFAIRS

Last year, Current Affairs managing editor Lily Sánchez wrote that “We Need Empathy, Not Just Etiquette, On The Subway”:

“Jordan Neely’s murder is a reminder that we need more than just civility toward other people in public. We actually need to give a damn about them.”

• In a rare example of moral courage from a Republican (we know, we’re surprised too), Indiana state Representative Bob Morris (R-Fort Wayne) is trying to end capital punishment in the state. He’s doing it for religious reasons, saying that while he once supported the death penalty, he’s come to believe that “human life is sacred” and that it’s unjust to implicate “every citizen in the execution which is done in their name” when many have strong faith-based objections. Morris is filing legislation today petitioning Governor Eric Holcomb, also a Republican, to halt all executions until the General Assembly can meet to consider abolition—and if he’s successful, it may save the lives of the eight people who are currently on Indiana’s Death Row. Good luck to him! (WOWO)
  
  
• The small town of Carrboro, North Carolina is suing Duke Energy, one of the largest utility companies in the world, for its damage to the climate. According to a study by University of Massachusetts Amherst, Duke is the third biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. The complaint asks for compensation from the company for current and future losses the town of 21,000 faces due to climate change, which is expected to raise temperatures in the town by anywhere from 6 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. (Salon)

CROOKS vs. SICKOS (Or, “What’s going on with our politicians and oligarchs?”)

• The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week for what may be the most important case in its history surrounding transgender rights. At issue in United States v. Skrmetti is a Tennessee law passed in 2023 banning transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming care. But as legal analyst Ian Millheiser explains for Vox, “Tennessee’s arguments in favor of the law could also permit the government to prohibit adults from receiving the same treatments.” He reports that the conservatives on the Court are very likely to uphold Tennessee’s law. This could open the doors for complete bans on transgender healthcare in many states, and it could even take a sledgehammer to other sex-based discrimination rules in the process.
  
  
• As if the U.S. healthcare system wasn’t already bizarre and dysfunctional enough, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who has been nominated by Donald Trump to run the Department of Health and Human Services—is now soliciting “cures” from random people online. On his new “Make America Healthy Again” website, Kennedy asks people to email him if they “have a cure for something,” implying that RFK will investigate and possibly give the “cure” government approval if he likes the look of it. This is terrifying, since there are all kinds of spurious “cures” floating around the internet—from apple cider vinegar as a cure for cancer, to colloidal silver and urine drinking—and RFK is a massive crank who might approve anything on a whim. Get ready for elixirs and poultices! (The New Republic)

• Donald Trump wants to add a new layer of cruelty to his already extraordinarily cruel “mass deportation” program. In cases where immigrants’ countries of origins refuse to take them back, he plans to have them dumped into one of several small Caribbean island nations, including Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, or Grenada; or the Central American nation of Panama. These countries are poorer and far less equipped to handle a sudden influx of people than the U.S. And as NBC News reports, “The plans could mean that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of migrants would be permanently displaced in countries where they do not know any of the people or the language and have no connection to the culture.” 
  
  
• Trump’s nomination of Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary has hit the rocks. He’s been accused of sexually harassing and abusing women (a charge even his mother once backed up), of driving two veterans’ charities into debt, and having a terrible drinking problem. (For his part, he has promised senators that he’ll quit drinking if they confirm him.) Trump has publicly stood by Hegseth as this tidal wave of skeletons has poured out of his closet. But privately he is mulling replacements, including Guantánamo Bay torturer-turned Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who, after being vanquished as a challenger to Trump, has returned to his original role as a shameless sycophant. (Politico)
  
  
• A judge in Delaware has once again vetoed Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package from Tesla. The huge payday for Musk was first proposed in 2018, and has been tied up in the courts for more than five years after some shareholders sued the company, arguing that giving the CEO that much money was a waste of resources that could be better used to grow Tesla itself. Musk has retaliated against Delaware in the meantime, moving SpaceX’s corporate registration to Texas and encouraging other CEOs to do the same after the courts denied his money the last time this January. It’s ironic, because Delaware is notorious for having a legal system friendly to corporations and bosses—but even for them, handing Musk a bag of this size is too much. (And keep in mind, Tesla gets extensive taxpayer-funded subsidies, so it’s partly your pocket he’s reaching into.) (Reuters)

Art by Aidan Y-M from Current Affairs Magazine, Issue 34, January/February 2022.

AROUND THE WORLD

❧ Shady Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, who we last saw trying to privatize airports and energy infrastructure in Kenya, is now facing extensive corruption charges. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Adani and several of his associates under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which targets acts of bribery overseas that impact U.S. investors or financial systems. They’re alleging that Adani and Friends paid as much as $265 million in bribes to Indian officials, in order to secure contracts to build the world’s largest solar energy plant in Gujarat (which would, in turn, affect anyone with investments involving the Adani Group of companies.) 

However, the Modi government has so far refused to indict Adani in India, and appears reluctant to even acknowledge the charges against him. Likewise, the SEC will soon be under the jurisdiction of Donald Trump and his henchmen, who aren’t exactly eager to go after corrupt billionaires. So this may go nowhere. Also, it raises an interesting ethical question: since we’re facing a worldwide climate catastrophe, is a little corruption okay if it gets more solar plants built? Write your answers to briefing@currentaffairs.org, if you feel like it. (Al Jazeera)

A billionaire? Pay bribes? Say it ain't so, Gautam! (Image: Adani Group)

• At the time of our last briefing, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol had just backed off a bumbling attempt to declare martial law and root out his internal enemies. This attempt to seize power has backfired spectacularly. Anti-Yoon protests and vigils still fill the streets of Seoul, many staffers have tendered their resignations, and the opposition has moved swiftly to impeach him. Why Yoon, who was already deeply unpopular, made such a foolish gambit is anyone’s guess. But the funniest explanation, offered by some Yoon partisans to Korean media, is that he was simply “lonely” and “needed a friend to talk to.” We’ve all been there before, man, but surely there are better ways of dealing with it! (New York Times)

Yoon Suk Yeol, looking wistful. (Photo: Free Malaysia Today)

• In just the first week since making a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, Israel already committed an estimated 100 violations of the deal. According to Sharon Zhang in Truthout:

A count by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that Israel had already committed 18 violations by the second day of the ceasefire. In one attack on Friday, the group said, Israeli soldiers fired on Lebanese people during a funeral procession that had gotten the necessary permits from UN and Lebanese military officials.

Additionally, Israeli tanks have been advancing deeper into areas they hadn’t gone into prior to the ceasefire, Euro-Med Monitor said. This is in spite of the ceasefire deal specifying that Israeli forces must withdraw from their positions in Lebanon.

POEM OF THE WEEK

“I Am You” by Refaat Alareer

Today, December 6, is the one-year anniversary of Dr. Alareer’s murder by the State of Israel. A poet, scholar, educator, and activist for the human rights of Palestinians, he was killed by a “surgical” and “apparently deliberate” Israeli airstrike on his apartment building, along with his brother, sister, and three of her children. Ever since, he’s become a literary icon, with poems circulated in dozens of languages around the world. This month, two new books commemorate his life and work: a memorial edition of Gaza Writes Back, the anthology of short stories from young Palestinian writers he edited in 2008-09, and If I Must Die, a new compilation of his poetry and prose from O/R Books.

The title poem, “If I Must Die,” is by far Alareer’s most famous—but today we’d like to share an excerpt from another, “I Am You,” from 2012. In it, Alareer addresses Israel and its leaders directly, with a message of compassion and shared humanity even in the face of death: 

I do not hate you.
‏I want to help you stop hating
‏And killing me.
‏I tell you:
‏The noise of your machine gun
‏Renders you deaf
‏The smell of the powder
‏Beats that of my blood.
‏The sparks disfigure
‏My facial expressions.
‏Would you stop shooting?
‏For a moment?
‏Would you?

‏All you have to do
‏Is close your eyes
‏(Seeing these days
‏Blinds our hearts.)
‏Close your eyes, tightly
‏So that you can see
‏In your mind’s eye.
‏Then look into the mirror.
‏One. Two.
‏I am you.
‏I am your past.
‏And killing me,
‏You kill you.

• As we speculated it might in the last briefing, the French government has collapsed after Prime Minister Michael Barnier lost his no-confidence vote on Thursday morning. President Emmanuel Macron says he’ll appoint a new PM soon, but he’s vowing to remain in office himself. Macron is currently in talks with Socialist Party leader Oliver Faure, who says he’s willing to negotiate but will not participate in a governing coalition that has a right-wing PM. Maybe this time Macron will do the right thing, and let the Left—which actually won the majority of seats in the last election—into the top spot instead of the Right, and appoint a Prime Minister Faure or Melenchon? If not, expect more turmoil ahead. (Le Monde)
  
  
• Protests have been going on for more than a week in Georgia after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that he would delay the country’s entrance into the European Union four another four years. The majority of Georgians want to join the E.U., but the ruling Georgian Dream party—which is accused of being aligned with Putin’s Russia— has decided to delay its entry after the European bloc called its recent electoral victory into question. Hundreds of protesters, several journalists, and at least one opposition leader have been arrested in a brutal police crackdown. (Associated Press)

BEARCAT FACT OF THE WEEK

Bearcats smell like popcorn!

There are a lot of mysteries to untangle in that sentence. First off: What even is a bearcat? Despite the name, it is neither a bear nor a cat. As Smithsonian Magazine describes it, these creatures—native to Southern Asia, and more commonly referred to as “binturongs”—are members of the Vivvirid family who “look like mask-less raccoons with tufty whiskers and eyebrows.” 

Even more notable than the strange name is the strange smell: For years, scientists were bedeviled by why these odd mammals smelled like they’d just walked out of a movie theater. Scientists examined a scent gland beneath the bearcat’s tail and found that it yielded no answers. In 2016, they found that bearcat urine was the source of the buttery smell. According to HowStuffWorks, “Their urine contains the chemical 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2-AP), and it's the same compound created in the popcorn-popping process when sugars and amino acids interact. You'll also find 2-AP in freshly toasted bread, or cooked rice.” It’s not entirely clear why bearcat pee contains such a smell—though it’s likely due to something in their diet. 

APOTHECARY ANSWERS

REAL DRUGS: Evkeeza, Paragard, Pradaxa, Rocephin

FAKE DRUGS: Tryglozim, Quiblissix, Entrovia

Thanks for playing!

Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.

Current Affairs is an independent leftist media organization supported entirely by its readers and listeners. We offer a beautiful bimonthly print and digital magazine, a weekly podcast, and a regular news briefing service. We are registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with EIN 83-1675720. Your gift is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Donations may be made through our website, via wire transfer, or by sending us a check. Email help@currentaffairs.org with any questions.