Were you surprised by the reaction of the general public to the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson? Shock that a man could be targeted walking down the street in broad daylight? (Remember that President-elect Donald J. Trump suggested he could do just this and get away with it). But the reaction has not been one of sympathy for the most part for this poor man and his family, but a broad understanding, even applaud, that someone finally decided that enough was enough.

Forbes reports that “UnitedHealth Group, which reported net come of $22.3 billion last year, had net income of $20.6 billion in 2022 after making $17.3 billion in 2021 and $15.4 billion in 2020. Before the pandemic UnitedHealth made $13.8 billion in 2019.”

And there are a great number of social posts that point to their denying benefits to people who are very sick. I read one post of a physician who wrote a scathing letter to United Healthcare because his patient, a young boy receiving chemotherapy was denied by the insurance giant the medication that would stop his nausea.

Jay Feinman in his book Deny, Delay, Defend tells of how insurance companies work to reduce any payments that are required from actually happening. It is the story of giant corporation, loaded up with lawyers, adjusters and clerks working to make great profits at the expense of people like that little boy in need of medication.

We use to call it “going postal” after the mass shootings at US Postal outlets when angry employees or former employees arrived at the postal building with guns ablazing.

Congressional member Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez has railed against CEO pay, pointing out that while CEOs of major U.S. companies earned 21 times as much as the typical worker in 1965, they now earn 290 times more.‌ But what goes beyond just the obscene amounts of money being pocketed by a small number of executives is that these sums of money are increasingly seen as being at the expense of the “average citizen”. This is especially true when housing costs soar, inflation erodes pay and the control of major parts of the economy falls into fewer and fewer hands.

So while the killer of Brian Thompson must answer for his actions, the world wants to know who else deserves justice in their daily living…or dying.