Mass-Murdering CEO Ended: American Enters Her Villain Era

The Ethics and Fallout of the Assassination of United Healthcare's CEO In this video, we delve into the controversial assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare. We explore the ethical implications, the motives behind the murder, the reaction from the public, and the potential suspects involved. The discussion includes an in-depth analysis of Thompson's controversial business practices which led to significantly higher claim denial rates compared to other major insurance companies, resulting in many deaths. We also look at how his policies affected everyday lives and the broader conversation about the morality and legality of vigilante justice in dire circumstances. Speaker: [00:00:00] Smithers had thwarted my earlier attempt to take candy from a baby, but with him out of the picture, I was free to wallow in my own crepulence. . But the old axiom was misleading. Taking the candy proved difficult I Malcolm Collins: hello, Simone! Today we are going to be going over the murder of the CEO of United Healthcare. We are going to go over the ethical arguments tied to the murder, the fallout of the murder, how the murder happened, the potential suspects at play. Whoa. Hello. Because it is a mystery. Some evidence points to the wife. I strongly disagree with this evidence and we'll get to why and how the murder was pulled off. Let's get into it. This is juicy. I mean, if we want to talk about, like, the insanity of the reaction to it, one of my favorite, like, most comical parts of the reaction to it has been the reward [00:01:00] Put out for any information that leads to this guy by the police department. They put out a 10 k reward. Okay. , Speaker 5: Nice. Nice. Malcolm Collins: Well, he murdered of United Healthcare, Speaker 6: This is serious. We need to track this student down and give him his luckiest boy in America medal right away. Speaker 7: I Malcolm Collins: . And Simone, I will lay out the, the basic information, the moral dilemma here and how people are reacting to this first, because I think that people are playing this like this isn't a real moral dilemma. It's like, just never react with joy to a murder, right? Like never celebrate a murder. And yet people celebrated the murder of bin Laden. This person almost certainly kills more people per year than bin Laden killed in his entire lifetime. , this is the, the best I have ever seen deontological ethics framed against consequentialist ethics. Because, like, deontological ethics, this person was [00:02:00] doing nothing wrong. They were doing their job and maximizing shareholder profit. Yes, everyone who died as a result of that. With a, someone who they had killed legally, the Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: Slight caveat here, which muddies the waters a bit is this guy was not even acting with fiduciary responsibility in the best interest of his investors. ' cause he defrauded his investors. We'll get to that in a second. Malcolm Collins: person who assassinated them almost certainly lowered the number of random innocent Americans who will die over the next few years, even if just due to the trepidation of CEOs around making these kinds of decisions. Simone Collins: Right. So you basically think he he's causing a chilling effect that will make other insurance company leaders nervous. Malcolm Collins: And to be clear, I'll put a chart on screen here and you can see that they had over the number of claim denial rates of the average insurance company. This increase happened under his reign. It increased to 32% [00:03:00] is. Kaiser Permanente the largest health insurance company Only denies seven percent Over the past five years since this guy came into power their denial rates tripled Simone Collins: tripled Oh Malcolm Collins: this guy came in in 2021. Simone Collins: Okay. again. Malcolm Collins: When he came in in 2021, the company only denied post acute care by 10. 9%. Oh, they were great when he started. Yeah, it was 22. 7%. Now obviously went up from there, but this is just one category. Yeah Ooh! This, it is, it is not true! At all an exaggeration to say this person's leadership and choices were killing, if you're talking about 57 million people under care, probably dozens of people a day. Simone Collins: Honestly, it's hard for me to deny this considering those numbers. That is damning. Yeah, that's really bad Speaker 32: [00:04:00] You wanna know why I don't have a coterie of supervillains? Speaker 31: Why? Speaker 32: My coterie is six feet f****n under! Speaker 33: Batman doesn't kill Speaker 32: people. Speaker 31: Because he's a pussy! Speaker 33: He's a dark creature of the night! He's a jackass! Who wrestles with murderers dressed like clowns and throws them in prison So they can break out of prison and then murder more people real me this how many people you think that man's indirectly murdered by? Being too much of a candy ass not to kill these fools who clearly need to be smoked Once and for all you wrinkly sharp haired looking dimension fested f**k , Malcolm Collins: , but it's not just that here is an article. United healthcare uses AI model with a 90 percent error rate to deny care. Based on a calculation on the percentage of payment denials reversed through internal appeals processes or administrative law judge rulings. As described by an ongoing class action lawsuit brought by the estate of two deceased people. So two people who he killed, their families brought a lawsuit against him. Now, keep in mind he also received a 10 million salary and spent millions on lobbying. And if you're wondering about the types of claims that UnitedHealthcare [00:05:00] was denying under his leadership, here is a letter that a doctor had to send him. Dear buttheads at insurance company. Hey, Simone Collins: this is medical lingo to be clear. The butthead is a technical term. Sorry, carry on. Malcolm Collins: I have to take time away from my patients to inform you that you are idiots. This whole experience makes me want to vomit, but of course I wouldn't dare throw up without the approval of the insurance company, which brings me to my point. Already you have decided that a child receiving chemotherapy has no reason to be nauseated. And, and this is in response to their denying nausea medication to a child who is like going to die going through chemotherapy. Simone Collins: Oh, wow. That's a bad look. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Huh. Malcolm Collins: And it's, it's, it's It's not just that. So I will, at the end of this, go over lots of individual [00:06:00] instances here, but I'll just go over one anecdote here, and this was somebody who just recently, just yesterday, they had talked to, for two hours, on the phone with seven to eight different people at UHC, trying to figure out why they denied it. They're 80 year old mom's peripheral anagram. She has 60 percent blockage in her right leg. It has a lot of pain and now has to walk with a cane or a walker around my household, even short distances. Her cardiologist requested a prior authorization for it, but you H C denied it because quote, she hasn't tried 12 weeks of PT in quote. What basically they're saying? Yeah. She'd probably die. It was in that amount of time, but whatever, you know, like, right. And here are what I'd say. So people are like, okay, but that doesn't just because there is somebody out there legally killing probably tens of people every day that doesn't give a sovereign citizen, the right to go out and kill him. And then I [00:07:00] would say, okay, so what's somebody supposed to do if they watched their daughter slowly dying in front of their eyes? Or their wife and they every day We're filing with this company every day. They were spending hours on on phone calls with this company they knew it was unjust but they just didn't have the money to fight back This company continued to take money from their family every single year and you go to that individual and you're like i'm sorry other families have to experience this as well And then the person says well, then what am I supposed to do? You And you say, well, you should let the legal system handle it Speaker 16: Think it may be how you explain the thermonuclear bomb and ransom note found in your armored limousine. Speaker 17: Yes, I can. They were merely researched for my novella. Give me money or I'll destroy your president. I'm a legitimate businessman who has been unfairly stigmatized why would I, a humble man. Possess a cache of nuclear weapons capable of destroying the city ten times over. No! I [00:08:00] believe that truth and justice will prevail. The system works, and I have faith in the system. God bless America! Destroyer! Destroyer! Malcolm Collins: And I, and I'd ask you seriously, do you think that this guy will ever face any serious repercussions from the legal system for what he's doing? Simone Collins: No, of course Malcolm Collins: not. Do you think he's going to stop doing what he's doing? Do you think other CEOs are going to stop doing this more and more and more and more people are going to watch their kids die and more people are going to watch their spouses die slowly? Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, this is just a more violent death related issue. Version of what happened with the housing crisis and the financial crisis in 2008. We saw what happens to people who are very wealthy and well connected when they do something provably wrong, even illegal in their case. Speaker 16: This is nothing more than a salty slab of justice jerky. Cut and dry So, you know, case closed. They say we, uh, I'll skip this trial thingy and go home. Okay, what is trying to [00:09:00] say is that, Speaker 17: is that, uh, we believe that truth and justice will prevail, that the system works, and, uh, we have faith in the system. When do I get to hit him again? Malcolm Collins: This guy actually might have had a prison sentence in his near future, but it was for securities fraud, not killing people. That's what the government cares about. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: Okay. So, and I'll go, no, at some point you need to ask, like, Okay, Nazis are taking over your country. Like how bad do things need to get before you say They might be killing people legally, but at some point somebody needs to do something. Speaker 34: I used to think God put me here for a purpose. For peace. Know, lately I'm just thinking I'm a f*****g maniac. Speaker 35: Do you think I feel good? When after some dude does some atrocious act, that I have to kill them? When I find out someone murdered an innocent person, or sold somebody heroin, or did some graffiti, and I kill that person with [00:10:00] my bare hands, you think that gives me pleasure? No. Well, it does. No! What separates us from other killers is we only kill bad people. Usually. Unless there's a mistake. Now, do I sound like a f*****g maniac? Malcolm Collins: So you might be like well the guy had kids and a wife Right, and i'm like actually they were separated and he wasn't living with them and then you're like, okay Well, maybe he had like a good heart like he gave to non profits or something I looked I can't find any non profit fundraising. I can't find any donations major donations to non profit and then you can say Okay, well, maybe this was just like he just did this one thing and it was like his job and he like wasn't otherwise an evil person. No, he was in the process of being sued for defrauding a firefighter's pension fund. How do Simone Collins: you even do that? Speaker 24: Are you a real villain? Well, uh, [00:11:00] technically, uh, nah. Alright, I can see that I will have to teach you how to be villainous. Simone Collins: Okay, so I can go into Malcolm Collins: the specifics of this case. The Hollywood Firefighters Pension Fund fired a lawsuit against Thompson, alleging he had sold over 15 million of UnitedHealth stock despite being actively aware of a Justice Department antitrust investigation into the health insurance company that he did not disclose with the investors or the public. Simone Collins: Oh, disclosures issue. Okay. Malcolm Collins: It erased 25 billion of shareholder value when it was released. Simone Collins: Oh, Malcolm Collins: oh yeah, right. Hold on. he sold 30 percent of his shares in the company as soon as they were under investigation. Simone Collins: He did Malcolm Collins: without telling the investors. So he didn't even practice fiduciary responsibility Hold on. Now you might be saying, okay, okay, okay. But it's not like. He was stealing from every American taxpayer watching this right now. Well, you'd be surprised. Actually, for the second time in one month, the U. S. Justice Department sued UnitedHealthcare Group for [00:12:00] wrongfully obtaining a billion dollars in Medicare. The Justice Department's involvement highlights the gravity of the situation. This is the second time they had done this. Simone Collins: Oh, wow. I know Doge is talking, and I guess Vivek Ramaswamy and Musk are talking about unauthorized payments through Medicare and Medicaid. Maybe this is what they're referring to as well. Stuff that's going to both medical providers, but also insurance companies. Basically, Malcolm Collins: they were telling patients that their illnesses weren't severe enough to be worthy of stuff. But whenever a patient, they, they did give out money, they would then go to the U. S. government and exaggerate the patient's symptoms to get more money than they were giving out. Simone Collins: That makes sense. Again, this is an adverse incentives thing. They're doing what They need to do to maximize profit. Malcolm Collins: Hold Simone Collins: on. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so you're, you're saying like, yeah, but this is just like indicative of the whole industry. Yeah, I'm saying don't hate Simone Collins: the players, hate the game. Malcolm Collins: Hold on. Listen, they say, Malcolm, you're a monster. Imagine your father [00:13:00] made hundreds of millions of dollars running an insurance company that dealt with life and death. Surely he would not be able to avoid scandal to provide for the family. Now, do you remember the company that my dad sold? Yeah. Yeah. It's a life insurance company. It was a 19 billion dollar company when he sold it. It was built by my great grandfather, grown by my grandfather, and grown significantly by my father who sold it. It was called the Fidelity Union Life Insurance Company. If you haven't heard of it, you may have heard of the U. S. branch of Allianz, which is what it transformed into after my dad sold it. And you might be like, Oh, you rich kid, Malcolm. I inherited jack s**t. When my mom died, I got 30, 000 because my family believes in heavily, heavily donating money heavily, heavily doing everything they can to give back to the country. Being in Congress or donating lots of money, as you know, so when you see my family's plaque to all these museums we go [00:14:00] to, but I don't, I don't have any of that money. And a lot of it was stolen as well. I'll admit that. But they were really, really big philanthropists with all this stuff. And they were never, Simone Collins: Your family gave a lot, and a lot more than I think is even normal among people who are wealthy, certainly not the minimum required for taxes or whatever. Malcolm Collins: They were, they were never involved in a major scandal. The only major scandal I could find, or lawsuit I could find, was an individual who was killed by a robber and they didn't pay out to his family. You can ask why didn't they pay out to his family. Because he had stopped paying premiums um, and they, the court decided in their favor and said, yeah, you don't pay to somebody who stopped paying premiums. What are you talking about? Simone Collins: Yeah, that seems like a fair deal. Malcolm Collins: And then they're like, well, certainly, you know, your dad wouldn't have been a generally good guy outside of this. Well, he did win a 10 Young Outstanding Americans Award to recognize his honor and not just building lots of jobs for this country, but in dot like one day, [00:15:00] like the level of heroism of this guy is hard to overstate. There was a storm on Lake Texarkana one day and he was out sailing and turned into like a big squall and there were no other boats out there and he had none of the safety rigging on his boat Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): He had none of the rigging on his boat because he had already started to take down the boat for the end of the season and was just doing one final sale around the lake before going in. Malcolm Collins: and a big yacht thing started sinking and it turned out it was a party boat. And so he goes and swims out from a sailboat without lines and rigging except for the ones for the sails to save everyone on the boat. He could easily Simone Collins: have died trying to save them. It's insane that he did this. It's amazing. Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: And to clarify this wasn't like something he did before he was a rich person running. And insurance company. This is something he did while he was in the position of CEO of the insurance company. Malcolm Collins: You, you, this is the point I'm making. It's not like You can't be a good person and run a company in an industry adjacent to this. By the way, if you're [00:16:00] wondering the the tricks to making money in the industry, like the reason my family did well in the industry, cause you're like, wait, how could they possibly have done well? If they tried to do everything ethically they had two big innovations. One was that you would get. Yeah. Stock in the insurance company when you paid your premiums which motivated selling to your friends and stuff like that and the other was and they were the first people I think to ever do that to like give stock in exchange for for buying stuff and then the other thing that they did was the primary sales tactic that they use, which is that life insurance is non taxed. And so for specific wealthy individuals, they could sell it to them and say that this gets around the, the tax that your estate would otherwise get when you die. Because it's an asset that's owned by the in person. And this is a strategy my dad actually developed because before he was allowed to run the company, He had to go out and be a salesperson and he actually became the best salesperson in the company And that's what gave the board his dad didn't want him taking over the right to put him in and [00:17:00] get rid of his own dad. Simone Collins: That's so cool. Wow. I didn't I didn't know that Malcolm Collins: But the point i'm making here more broadly Is you don't have to be like I am not against rich people I am not against ultra capitalists people know I stand for people like elon all the time on this show I have no animosity to this guy because he won in a capitalist system. I have animosity and moral questions because the core way he won was by taking money from people he was killing. Simone Collins: Yeah, and he could have Done so many things to maximize shareholder profit that didn't involve that. He could have reduced bureaucratic bloat. He could have automated more. He could have streamlined his systems. He could have made the company operate better. And there's a lot of things we, we use United healthcare as our insurance provider, and I can tell from just my customer perspective, that there's a lot they can do better from an ops. standpoint, and that's not what he was doing to maximize. It Malcolm Collins: wasn't that he wasn't focused on signaling as a company. What a good guy they were. While they [00:18:00] might have been denying your kids cancer treatment or your grandma's, you know, heart surgery, they were voluminously providing puberty blockers to underage kids. Are you kidding me? Simone Collins: Oh boy, okay. Speaker: It's not about money. It's about sending a message. Malcolm Collins: Wow. And this is where it gets interesting in terms of the fallout and reaction to this. I think many on the left are beginning to realize that they are the party that's protecting oligarchs and they are surprised about this. Like Taylor Lorenz, the person who docs, lives of TikTok and an absolutely garbage person, has been Cheering about this over and over and over again on her profile and blue sky and just getting absolutely dunked upon Even on reddit and i'll put a story here moderators have been deleting threads as doctors torch dead united healthcare ceo and people on these lefty platforms are like wait, why why are our leaders? Hiding anything that [00:19:00] presents any sort of a moral argument around this. And I think that they're like, I hope some of them wake up and they're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Are we the bad guys? Are, are, are we the ones who are supporting the oligarchs who are killing children? Are we the ones who are that callous with human life? So long as you follow the deep States rules, so long as you aren't a threat to the existing order, are we the ones who enabled all of this with Obamacare to begin with? But I've just noticed something. Have you looked at our caps recently? Our caps? The badges on our caps. Have you looked at them? What? No. A bit. They've got skulls on them. Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them? I don't, uh Hans. [00:20:00] Are we the baddies? Malcolm Collins: I'll get into more specific because it is really hard to say, like, as you said, we'll get into the specifics of what this guy did that there weren't other ways he could have pursued increasing profits. Specifically, his strategy was just to deny more customers. And and to make it much, much harder to get things paid for. But I want to hear your thoughts because you went into this telling me, Malcolm, do not make an argument that this is morally acceptable. Malcolm, do not make an argument that this is morally acceptable. Are you at all persuaded? Speaker 16: This is nothing more than a salty slab of justice jerky. Cut and dry So, you know, case closed. They say we, uh, I'll skip this trial thingy and go home. Simone Collins: Listen, I hear what you're saying, but I'm also concerned about legal liability. And if someone who's a documented fan of ours goes on and assassinates some other leading unethical figure. I don't know. Maybe there's a lawsuit in there, and I don't want to deal with that. So, I want to make it [00:21:00] very clear that we are officially saying it is a very bad idea to ever assassinate someone, no matter how justified it is, no matter how logical it is. Don't do it. We told you to not do it. If anyone says that you told us, or that we told you to do it, they're lying. Because we're not, and this is a video of us saying that. Speaker 16: Okay, what is trying to say is that, Speaker 17: is that, uh, we believe that truth and justice will prevail, that the system works, and, uh, we have faith in the system. When do I get to hit him again? Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I would say that it is illegal to do, right? Like, it's definitely, it's super illegal and that I like that I live in a country where if this guy is caught, he would face the death penalty for this. , and people can be like, Wait, how could something be both something where you're like, well, there is an ethical question at hand here. And you're okay with the guy who did this facing the death penalty. If you are going to take justice into your own hands like this, you should be so certain that you are doing [00:22:00] the right thing, that you are willing to die for it. Simone Collins: Wait, and that's, yeah, that is, that is how breaking the law works. And that's how most people should be thinking about teaching their kids about laws is that. Laws are price tags. A speeding ticket is a price tag. Sometimes it's worth it to pay that price tag. The death penalty is a price tag. And life in prison is a price tag. You should be aware of the price tags associated with breaking various laws. And don't see it as just like either don't do it or do do it. It's a trade off. Malcolm Collins: Here's the problem with this particular price tag in this instance. It may have been cheesed. We don't know, and we'll get into this in a second, we don't know if the guy who killed him didn't have a terminal illness. He may have been the one who is dying and being denied his claims. Simone Collins: That's true. Well, and that, yeah that makes, that makes terminally ill people very dangerous when it comes to assassinations. Because their price tag is very different what you're going to do. Malcolm Collins: And for people who want to push back on this and be like, no, you should never break the law. You should never do this. I ask you a question. Would you murder [00:23:00] Hitler? If Hitler was rising to power in your country, Would you murder Hitler? Almost every sane person is gonna say, I would murder Hitler, right? And I'd be like, well, murdering Hitler was against the law, and they're like, yeah, but he was gonna kill a bunch of people in the future. And I'm like, well, what's the number of people for you wear this tips? Like, when is it okay? How many people did Simone Collins: see that? This is the thing. This is the trolley problem again, is I think the vast majority of people, no matter how many people they could save are not willing to pull that lever and personally be responsible for death, even if they're active killing someone or multiple people. Saves more people. They're just most people are not willing to. I can't. I don't know what percentage it is, but Malcolm Collins: it's not being willing to, unless the situation is absolutely demonstrable because we, as individuals do not have good vision into these things. No, well, that's Simone Collins: why it's Malcolm Collins: the Simone Collins: trolley problem, though, that that is supposed to [00:24:00] be in demonstrable situations where you see the trolley and, you know. Malcolm Collins: The point I'm making here and the reason why I would generally be against something like this is because you don't know, you don't have insight to, is this person really responsible for? Yeah, no, that's, Simone Collins: and that's my whole thing is even if he's the one making the call, he's going to be replaced by someone else who does this. That's where I'm like, I don't know if this is going to make a difference. Do you think they would do it as brazenly? I think they'd do it as brazenly with a lot of security. They'd never be out in public. Without a lot of security, maybe a bulletproof vest. Yeah, I Malcolm Collins: kind of feel like we as a society are getting to a point right now where, and I feel like this is what we saw was the Trump election, where the average American who's been stepped on by the system over and over and over and over again, it's just like, where are our, our great CEOs anymore? Where are the great. You know, meaningful. Simone Collins: Look at who's leading. And I mean, Ramaswamy, Donald Trump. I mean, a [00:25:00] lot of people, he was elected originally in the election because they were like, I think he's a great CEO. I think he's a great businessman and I want him to run the country. I think that CEOs have. Yeah, and this is always been Malcolm Collins: this is the point I'm making when I say where are they they're in this administration They are the ones that have been targeted by the deep state Targeted by the urban monoculture. They are the ones who have been othered and made evil while people like this are held up as paragons By the urban monoculture. Oh my god You cannot feel anything other than horror and shame that this person was killed, is what they say. And I, and then people will argue to me, they'll say something like, Well, how, how can you decide, like, morality on your own? One person on Discord is like, how can you decide what's good and what's bad? On your own. Speaker 27: Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom. Make up your own mind, Rico. Malcolm Collins: And I was like, well, like my logic, like thinking through [00:26:00] this. And then the individual was like, but your logic you, you can't make like a logical argument about what's right and wrong. At the end of the day, you're just creating like one overriding deontological rule when you do that, you know, it's, you're still using logic to create an arbitrary judgment. And I'm like, well, here's the problem with that argument. If, if you deny my ability to choose what's logic, what's moral based on my logic, using your logic, you have lost the argument. Mm-hmm. Because you have used logic to deny Logic's ability to determine what's right and wrong. Speaker 30: You get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir. Malcolm Collins: Fun fact. , Steve Davis, the guy who was the architect of the Twitter layoffs. Did a real life Willy Wonka style giveaway of his first company. You Gotto. Ending up selling it for $1. , expect to hear more about this guy in the near future. But a great example of how you can be a good inefficient CEO was out killing children. Mm-hmm . [00:27:00] Um, But. It's, it's, it's worse than that because I don't think that any sane person sitting down is going to be like killing probably at least dozens of people every month, if not every day people who are paying you, people who are innocent. That's a bad thing, right? Like that, that's a thing that you would want stopped in some way. And you might be right that this does nothing to stop it and the cycle just continues. But I guess what I'm saying is, is like I did it. And people were also shocked when I said that with another potential assassination video where I was like, I, and in the other case, I disagreed with the guy. But at least I could empathize with where he was coming from. In this particular instance, if it had been my kids or my wife, I, as a third party, I'm saying no, like horrible, don't do this. But I have the luxury to say that because I didn't watch my wife slowly die over the course of two to three years at the hands of somebody who is taking my [00:28:00] money and spending it on luxury. The plane flights and 10, 000, 000 salaries. Simone Collins: Yeah. 10, 000, 000. What do you even do with that much money? That's insane. Malcolm Collins: And by the way, this is what somebody says who works in this industry. They go, I've dealt with United healthcare for years, doing a peer to peer reviews, trying to overturn their systemic refusal to authorize covered benefits. This Brian Thompson was a criminal who led a criminal enterprise. This company is responsible for untold harm and deaths to their customers. Brian had it coming. I will sleep better tonight. This is something day in, day out. This is their job. , now I'm going to go into what actually happened with the assassination. We can go over the suspects and then we're going to go into the argument. That Brian Thompson had many other ways he could have excessive extracted profit from the company and chose not to explore them and shows to just basically kill people in a way that I don't even think was long term sustainable. I think United Healthcare will long term suffer [00:29:00] unsustainably. Abusive way he was treating his customers. And there's evidence of that as well. Simone Collins: So he even wasn't long term maximizing shareholder profit. He was just, he Malcolm Collins: wasn't, he was short term maxing it to get a sellout. And then he sold 30 percent of his shares in the company as soon as they were under investigation. Simone Collins: He did Malcolm Collins: without telling the investors. So he didn't even practice fiduciary responsibility. Remember? Simone Collins: Oh, no. Okay. Gosh, this just gets worse and worse. Malcolm Collins: Brian Thompson, the 50 year old CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot and attacked on Wednesday, December 4th, 2024, in midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was previously reported that the suspect used a city bike, which can be tracked, but the NYPD has clarified the incident did not involve that type of bike. The suspect had waited at the nearby corner all night until the executive walked by, according to witnesses. People knew he was going to be there because he was going to a shareholder's meeting. And this, I think, blocks for me, a lot of people have been like, Oh, this was a professional [00:30:00] assassin. How did he know where the guy was going to be? How did he know what door he was going to be using? How did he happen to be there at just the right time? He wasn't there at just the right time. He was waiting there all night long. He that is not something I think a professional assassin would have done. He was using public information to find the guy. It was public information that he was going to speak at this shareholder meeting. And we'll get into more in just a second. Witnesses told reporters they heard three shots as he was parking a car in the area. The, the, Three shots are actually really important because it tells you a part of how this was premeditated that the news hasn't caught on to yet for some reason. Um,, just to go over a map here that I'll put on screen this is a little out of date, but at 6. 44 AM, the victim was walking alone towards the New York Hilton Midtown after exiting his hotel across the street. Now Yeah, this is actually right near where we used to do our morning walks and everything in in Manhattan, Simone. So you would have seen this if you're on a morning walk. You remember what the streets are like at around 6 24 a. m. They're pretty empty. A lot of people have acted like this is [00:31:00] midday. Simone Collins: Yeah, there's just a decent number of early morning commuters. Basically all the working class people are out and then The early risers of the white collar workers are out to it's, it's not totally unpopulated. Malcolm Collins: Shooter then runs into an alleyway between 54th street and 55th street. Then that's where we always Simone Collins: stay is on 55th street. So this is exactly where we know everything. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Then the shooter who was lying in wait alongside the building fires at him. Once at 55th Street, the shooter continues to walk onto 6th Avenue where he gets on an electric city bike. This part is wrong, by the way. And then the shooter rides north on 36th Avenue towards Central Park. And then he disappeared at 6 48 a. m. in Central Park. Simone Collins: Wow. Malcolm Collins: So just four minutes after the shooting, he was disappearing in Central Park. Simone Collins: So efficient. So he shoots him, gets on a bike. Malcolm Collins: Right. No, he didn't get on a bike. People got that wrong and they might've been tracking the wrong person. [00:32:00] Oh, wow. That's what the NYPD is saying right now. So Simone Collins: on foot, he went to Central Park. Malcolm Collins: Maybe, or maybe that's tracking the guy who was on the bike who appears in one image, but appears to have not been the suspect. Just another guy with a backpack like the suspects. Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: New piece of information that came out this morning, is it found that the suspect using a fake New Jersey driver's license? Came into Manhattan on a Greyhound bus. Malcolm Collins: The suspect was wearing like a mask that didn't even look conspicuous. It looked like what you would wear on a cold day in New York, In a hoodie that looked like what you would wear on a cold day in, in New York. Yeah. He was wearing a black hoodie and black pants with a gray backpack and he approached Thompson from behind, and you can watch the video of this, and he shot him once in the leg the gun then doesn't cycle, it does not jam, as some reports have said, it doesn't cycle, he does what you do when a gun doesn't cycle And this, the reason it didn't cycle is likely because he was using both a silencer and subsonic ammo. And it appears that the person had practiced enough [00:33:00] to expect this to happen. He taps the gun a few times. Re does, I don't know that much about fixing a gun like this. Re does, I think, like, re cocks it and then shoots again. But what I do know is this caused live ammunition to come out of the gun. Gun, so a lot of people say there was three casings at the scene But there was also three live bullets found at the scene now this becomes Interesting because on the casings slash live bullets was written three words The words were and we'll get into the potential meaning of these in a second Deny, defend, depose. Now, where this gets interesting is he only shot three times. So he didn't know, he didn't expect the gun to jam like this. Which meant some of the words would have been on the jammed bullets, which would have come out before the shell cases. Which meant that he went into this planning to shoot three [00:34:00] times to create this message. Wow. For, for some reason, the three shots had a significant to this guy. Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and that, that implies heavily, like you were saying that he's not a hit man. This is personal. Unless I, cause it seems like a big ask if I'm hiring a hit man to also demand in such a high maintenance fashion that you must also inscribe on the bullets, my special message. I mean, that would be an added fee if Malcolm Collins: So experts suggest the shooter's actions indicate that he may be a practiced and seasoned trained professional killer, possibly with law or military experience. However what is not believed, which is interesting is that he was a professional hitman. This does not appear to be a hitman to me. Everything was possible with public information. And the way that he waited all night at the location just doesn't seem very hitmany to me. Also, the three bullets. To me, seeing symbolic of [00:35:00] something, . Well, Simone Collins: since there's something written on them, otherwise I was assuming, I don't know where I heard this, but I heard somewhere that in standard police training, you are told to shoot chest chest head when you're trying to. Malcolm Collins: Maybe. He also, I mean, a very non Hitman y thing is he was videoed at a local Starbucks buying stuff beforehand. Oh, Simone Collins: what did he get? Malcolm Collins: Egg bites? He dropped a water bottle and cell phone that are believed to be dropped by the suspect and they're checking for DNA. Oh, no. And, Oh, that's so bad. Simone Collins: Oh, that's great. I want to know what he ordered. Malcolm Collins: let's talk about the three words because I've read a number of potential things that they could have met. Simone Collins: Okay. Malcolm Collins: Deny this could refer to the denial of insurance claims or coverage by UnitedHealthcare. This is, I asked, A. I would have thought defend. This term may relate to the company's efforts to defend its policies or practices, possibly against criticism or legal challenges to pose in a legal context. It's often means to give sworn testimony. It could indicate [00:36:00] that the shooter wanted Thomas for questioning or accountability. I do not buy that. Some people have claimed that this is a sign that it was somebody trying to keep him from giving damning evidence during the deposition that he was about to go to. And it was like assigned by other people in the healthcare industry. I highly doubt that this is the case. Just given how hard it would be for a random wealthy person to hire a hitman that actually doesn't really happen that much. Even when you look at something like Epstein I won't say that I might have inside information into that but If I did one of the Middle Eastern ruling families which would have access to Hitman very easily and one of the ones who was known to have used Hitman in the past and so there wouldn't have been any trouble for them doing this. But if you're like a random other insurance company CEO, would you really risk hiring a Hitman? Like that's That's wildly risky for something that was a security violation, not even questioning like their record or [00:37:00] anything like that. Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: And I note here that the payout from this lawsuit was going to be $5 million. That's what was expected. And the articles I read this guy's salary was $10 million a year. Do you really think he's going to be assassinated over a $5 million lawsuit? Malcolm Collins: Now the, the one that I have found to be most powerful in terms of the arguments as to what this was about, is it specifically written in reference to a book? So the book is called delay, deny, defend, which is about how corrupt the insurance industry is. And it's the most famous book about how corrupt the insurance industry is. And about what the three D's mean. Delay insurance companies intentionally slow down claim processing by requesting extensive documentation, creating technicalities, or declaring claims under investigation. This tactic benefits insurers by allowing them to hold onto money longer for investment gains and exhausting claimants into giving up. So for [00:38:00] people who don't understand this, a company on average even if they're only extending the amount, the length that they have the money, like by four months or three months, They get additional money from it because the money makes money for them over time. So they have a reason just to delay. It doesn't matter if you're suffering. It doesn't matter if your relatives are dying. Deny claims are Simone Collins: better if they're dead. Cause they won't bother you anymore. So Malcolm Collins: wait them out. If you can delay until they die, you don't have to pay it out. Deny claims are often outright rejected, sometimes based on arbitrary or fabricated reasons hidden in the fine print. Denials discourage claimants from continuing to pursue their rights and defend. If delay and deny fail, insurers might aggressively defend against claims in court. This tactic prolongs resolution and burdens claimants with legal costs and time, deterring many from pursuing valid claims. Simone Collins: It's just another way to delay. And make it extra expensive to do so. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so what's interesting is the last word. So if [00:39:00] it was in reference to this, He's saying, basically, you delayed, you denied, I depose. If the standard is delay, deny, defend, what he's basically attempting to do with this is rewrite the last part of this. Simone Collins: You delayed, you denied, I depose with my bullets. Well, goodness. Malcolm Collins: So, if, if you're wondering what I was talking about earlier he was big on DEI integration in his company. He was a big supporter of LGBTQ plus communities offering gender reform and care to minors. He created a workforce diversity group that implemented DEI focused strategies. For underrepresented groups like a, the DEI executive sponsorship [00:40:00] program to give an unfair advantage to anyone in a protected class within the company. They also did training seminars and stuff like that, and the company gave 100, 000, 000. Dollars to diversity initiatives instead of to your dying family members not ideal. Okay so now we're going to go into the. Argument that what he was doing was above and beyond and not normal for someone in his position Which I think is important if he was just acting like everyone else in the industry I'd be like look this is an industry problem, right? Not a he specifically was an extra evil person problem So UnitedHealthcare had the highest claim rate among major health insurance companies with approximately 32 percent of claims being denied. If you look at other insurers, Ansem is 23%, Aetna is 20%, CareSource is 20%, Millenia is 19%. Simone Collins: We've had UnitedHealthcare mostly uninterrupted for the past [00:41:00] seven plus years. And it's been awful. We had one six month period where just I was on Aetna and I felt like I lived in a different world Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I remember that keep in mind how bad this is. Kaiser Permanente the largest health insurance company Only denies seven percent. Simone Collins: Oh, that's why people are so obsessed with Kaiser. I've always wondered around about that We we know a decent number of people Cause I think Kaiser is a big insurer in California who, despite leaving the state choose to maintain residency in California, which means paying at California state tax, which is insanely high just to maintain their Kaiser insurance. Because that is, it's just, it's financially worth it at that point, considering how much they cover. You can't leave. Basically it's the golden handcuffs of insurance. Malcolm Collins: Remember this guy came in in 2021. Simone Collins: Okay. again. Malcolm Collins: When he came in in 2021, the company only [00:42:00] denied post acute care by 10. 9%. Oh, they were great when he started. Yeah, it was 22. 7%. Now obviously went up from there, but this is just one category. Yeah, they were almost as good as Kaiser Permanente when he started. Oh my god. Um, In 2022 uh, UnitedHealthcare denied prior authorized requests for post acute care at rates that were three times higher than the denial rates for all other types of prior authorization requests. Ooh! This, it is, it is not true! At all an exaggeration to say this person's leadership and choices were killing, I think, if you're talking about 57 million people under care, probably dozens of people a day. Simone Collins: Honestly, it's hard for me to deny this considering those numbers. That is damning. Yeah, that's really bad. Malcolm Collins: I, I thought you might start to change your mind as this episode [00:43:00] goes on. Yeah. I went into this being like, no, the public shouldn't have a right to just shoot a rich guy because he's corrupt. They shouldn't have a right. To shoot a person because his company, you know, maybe dump toxic waste somewhere. And then that ended up causing some issue in a community or something like maybe he didn't have any say in those particular policies. Maybe he had no ability to know that was happening. I know our employees have done ethical. Unethical stuff that we've tried to stop in the past. That is not the case here. This guy specifically transformed the company in an unethical direction In a way that melts more profits by killing people and we'll go over just how much more profits he was able to rake in as well Simone Collins: I have to say when I first saw the news, I misread and thought that the headline was Brian Johnson. Oh, that would be so Malcolm Collins: bad. Nice guy. Simone Collins: That's like driving over the Nazca Lines. Like, he's trying to live forever, okay? He's doing a big human experiment here. Don't, like, don't. You know, it's just a beautiful thing. Don't [00:44:00] mess it up. Like, let him try. Don't drive over the Nazca Lines. Don't deface the Washington Monument. You know, don't, don't. Trample around giant sequoia trees that are, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years old and don't kill Brian Johnson, you know? But this is a little different. Malcolm Collins: Okay. So he came in in 2021. So if you're looking at their gross profits, you can see they were growing slightly before this. Okay. So 2020 67 billion and then 2021 69. 65 billion. So if you look at like before he came into power, it was growing from like 67 billion one year to 69. 65 billion. The next that sounds like normal management, right? He comes in. It goes from 69. 65 billion to 79. 62 billion, and then the next year it's 90. 9 billion. Oh, wow. I mean, Simone Collins: okay, are there any other things he did? [00:45:00] They could have boosted. It's aside from denying. I mean, the percentage of denied care does seem to go up. No, no, we're going to figure out how we really justify as well. Malcolm Collins: Okay. In 2023, they grew 12. 7 percent year over year. If you're a CEO, you know that's not normal. Simone Collins: That is not. Malcolm Collins: That's like you're doing something amazing, not at a company like this, not at like a basic insurance company. Yeah, Simone Collins: not, not, yeah, yeah, maybe in a, a, a growth phase startup for sure. That is to be expected. Not at, yeah, not at UnitedHealthcare. Malcolm Collins: I'm just going to drop in another random anecdote here. Somebody saying, even though I pay for a top tier plan with UnitedHealthcare, they sent my daughter a letter explaining that they denied a claim for a one night stay at a hospital that literally saved her life. Also, my daughter was four years old at the time and the letter was addressed to her. Oh, okay. [00:46:00] Sorry, little girl, a little little four year old. It's a little shame that you didn't die. We were hoping that that would because you don't pay your under your father's plan. It's demonstrably good for them if the four year old dies. Because she's not paying for health care. So, oh, I don't want to go into the insider trading allegations. No, I Simone Collins: mean, keep in mind, like, parents pay their kids premiums. It costs extra to have a kid on your plan. They're being paid for. Malcolm Collins: Oh, do kids cost extra? I thought that kids Oh, Simone Collins: no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Malcolm Collins: you pay for your kids. Simone Collins: Kids cost extra kids. Remember Malcolm Collins: I was talking about that AI that was making mistakes. Huh. So the lawyer alleges that the United healthcare knew the algorithms had an extremely high error rate and that it denied patients claims knowing only a tiny percentage. 0. 2 percent would file appeals to try to overturn the insurer's decisions. The complete legends of the algorithm dubbed NH predict has a 90 percent error rate based on a calculation on the percentage of [00:47:00] payment denials reversed through internal appeals processes or administrative law judge rulings. So. It had an error rate, the AI that they were using to deny people of 90 percent false positive. That Simone Collins: makes so much sense. I mean, consider that a lot of companies build off this business model, right? They get you to sign up for the free trial and assume that you'll never check your subscriptions and keep paying for them until you discover five years later that you've never used them and you don't want to pay for them. And I'll admit when we get bills, you know, and we've been denied coverage for things, I don't have the time. To spend pushing back for months and getting on the phone and constantly calling. And we, there are people I know who do but also their home homekeepers of like their, their homemakers, I should say like their, their full job is to take care of the family and the home and the family's finances. If that, if I had that. Luxury. Maybe I could, but like it is, it is a job [00:48:00] to do that. And you, our family can't do that. I imagine most families don't have a full time person at home to manage the home's finances and bills and to fight back on behalf of the family to do things like this. Similarly, for example, with you know, how there are these do not call lists that technically you shouldn't be called by spammers. You can actually pursue them, you know, get on the line, find out who they are, and then make legal claims against them and actually make a decent amount of money. Like this one stay at home dad who makes this his, like, side hustle, isn't he? He, like, finds them and he gets money from them breaking rules. But, again, that is a Decent investment of time. And unless you are only part time employed or mostly at home caring for kids or family or on your own, just handling a household, then you can't do it. So that, I mean, it's a, I guess I should say it's a smart business model because you can depend on most people not having the resources to fight back, Speaker 8: Well, hello there! [00:49:00] Looking to get some insurance? No, my friend's mom already has insurance with your company. Oh, great! You're here to pay your bill. No, no, oh, you want money from us? Right through that door over there. Speaker 9: Hello. Speaker 11: Let me, let me just speak with our medical director Speaker 9: first. Yeah, yeah, okay. Speaker 12: Who was that? That was the medical director. Speaker 13: But you didn't say who the patient was wrong with him. Speaker 12: Right. The medical director's job is just to say no. Speaker 13: Look, my friend's mom has been paying you people for years Speaker 14: I didn't realize I was dealing with someone who had so much determination. If you do a little more work, so all you have to do is navigate the American healthcare system. Speaker 15: These forms. I just, I just spoke about the last Speaker 9: place. Speaker 15: It's so much fun to be getting it done. We go back to the doc to get that thing fixed. We're filling out forms, and we're scanning those forms And then we're emailing those forms to get [00:50:00] them back to insurance Simone Collins: but that's really evil to like make a company that promises services. And then banks on the fact that your customers will not have the wherewithal to fight back when you mistreat them. Especially Malcolm Collins: when those services are life saving. Simone Collins: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It's one thing if you're giving them shoddy light fixtures or, you know, low thread count sheets that aren't as good as you promised, or your clothing falls apart after three washes. This is, you're right, people's lives. That is horrible. Malcolm Collins: When you hear about the little kid. Going through chemotherapy, being denied nausea medication. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: That's Like, are you just like That's sick. It's sick. Yeah. It's sick in the extreme. It's like, w w w when I compare this guy to Nazis, it's like Himmler experiments and stuff like that. It's like, It's sick. It's sick. It's sick. Really, and they would regularly [00:51:00] deny pain medication if the pain lasted longer than it was supposed to. This was another thing they got in trouble for a lot, that they would just turn off anesthesia if the person felt pain longer than the, like, minimal supposed period they were supposed to be feeling it. Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: And this is part of what makes me so mad when people are like, well, you should be handling this through the legal system. You know, let the laws handle this. They were breaking the laws. United healthcare face a department of labor lawsuit for denying claims based solely on diagnosis codes, rather than patient need violating the employee retirement income security act. E R I S a, but then went back to doing that after the case. , in fact, the us Senate subcommittee has scolded United healthcare for denying prior authorized requests for extensive post acute care at three times the rate of other such requests. Speaker 41: I'm sorry, but the Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: us Senate subcommittee must be firm with you. Or else. Or else what? Or [00:52:00] else, we will be very, very angry with you. And we will write you a letter telling you how angry we are. Speaker 40: Good. Speaker 42: How you like that, you f****n c********r? You have any idea how f****n busy I am, Osbricks? Well, f**k you! Congratulations, Team America! You have stopped nothing. Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: And keep in mind, this denial was being done by an AI, which got it wrong, 90% of the time. And the company knew that and kept using it. Malcolm Collins: So no, it was, it was horrifying what they were doing. And this is what I'd ask people who want to push back on this a lot on me. Speaker 35: Now, do I sound like a f*****g maniac? Malcolm Collins: Right. I, I, I ask because they're like, how dare you say that we should live in a society where. If somebody has their family murdered by a legal [00:53:00] mass murderer that they should be able to go to a store, buy a gun, and assassinate that person, and then face the death penalty for that. Like, what a horrifying society that would be to live in. I'm like, b***h, that's the society the Founding Fathers created. That's the society you're living in right now. What you're forgetting is the last part of what you just said. And then face the death penalty for it. I'm not okay with this being legalized or something, I'm just saying that I also am not saying that if you, if you look at the like vast weight of this, and this is right about somebody who really pushes me back. How many additional people do you need to have very strong evidence a person is going to kill? Before, because clearly you're like, okay, Hitler is okay. So where did you draw the line? How many people do an individual's decisions need to lead to dying with them knowing that that is the outcome of their decisions?[00:54:00] Before you're like, okay, this is where I react and some people never react many people, you know in germany They just went along with it to the end I know that that's not who my family is. I know that when the south seceded from the union over slavery as I mentioned before 15 of the 50 founding members of the free state of jones were direct relatives of mine either siblings of a ancestor of mine or kids of siblings of an ancestor of mine So when the south is like we're gonna fight for slavery. My family was like no f**k you. We'll kill you we're gonna start in separate states And we'll kill all of you. I don't care what you're fighting for. I don't care that you say it's the law. It's immoral. Speaker 18: You won't miss this, though. [00:55:00] Speaker 19: I knew you were dead. Malcolm Collins: And some people just aren't built that way. And I think that fundamentally the type of person who sees something like this and is like, No, what the shooter did was demonstrably wrong in every way it could conceivably be looked at. These are the types of people who support Hitler because he rose to power legally. He rose to power as an elected official. These are the people who, when the camps start, they're like, well, it's all being done through legal means. You know, there is nothing to them that is unethical other than what is said to them. What is said by the local authority. That defines their ethical system. [00:56:00] And they're not able to say, oh and so I say to this person, everybody who wants to push back on me on this, I want one thing. In your reply where you're pushing back to me, I want you to define the difference between if you would have now you can say in your reply, I would have been not done anything about Hitler's right to power, not done anything about it at all. But if you're the type of person who thinks that you would have tried to stop it. Or even stop it after it started. After the Holocaust camps were going and every additional day meant more people were dying, what's the number of people for you that have to differentially die because this person stays alive? What's the number? Like, what's the difference in Hitler between this guy for you? Simone Collins: Well, I would also observe that if people begin to feel like they're living through societal collapse, and that if a crime is committed against them, or if they are wronged in some way, there's no recourse, vigilante justice is going to fill that void. And we [00:57:00] are starting to get to that point. I think things may start to break soon where there's so much shoplifting. There's so much petty crime. That's not being prosecuted. There is so much of this feeling. And again, like when there were gunshots outside our house, nobody. In our immediate vicinity who heard them called the police because why would police come? We just this this guy Malcolm Collins: lives if he called the police, they'd come. They'd come. Simone Collins: They'd come because he's rich. Yeah. Well, that's but I think what I'm saying is if the average citizen. Feels like they have no legal recourse. If they were to fight a big company like this, they have no, no protection from the law, if they're personally at risk, then when it comes to things like them feeling physically threatened, personally threatened, or seriously wronged by businesses, they will take justice into their own hands after they've reached a breaking point. And [00:58:00] maybe you're right. Maybe we're reaching a tipping point in society, not just where people are That there's kind of a moral calculus that makes the price worth it for them, but also reaching a point at which they feel like they genuinely have no other choice, because what used to be a viable pathway to pursue justice through legal avenues. Is no longer there that the, the justice system doesn't serve anyone, but the extremely wealthy anymore. And for them, it's just a series of Malcolm Collins: the, the, the, the deep state bureaucrats. I mean, if you look at the Trump sentencing where, where, you know, everyone going on about how he's a felon and as we've pointed out, he got a felon for not labeling his prostitute hush money payments as prostitute hush money payments. Like, like in his tax filings they're like, Oh, this is. That's insane. That's insane that you would, you would give someone a felony for that. Especially when you consider that we know that Kamala Harris husband also was paying hush money [00:59:00] payments to the nanny for having knocked her up. What, Housekeeper, do you think that he was labeling those correctly? No. So why did, is Trump a felon and Kamala's husband not a felon? It's because Trump is at odds with the deep state bureaucracy. This isn't about the rich versus the poor. This is about those against the oligarchs and the bureaucrats who, for example, I love that the Dems pretend like Elon Musk is some sort of like insider oligarch guy. No, they hate him. If Camilla had won, his company would have been out of power. They were denying the Starter with his spaceship company thing over like, well if it comes down it might hit a whale. It Simone Collins: might Malcolm Collins: hit a shark. Oh, Simone Collins: the whale, the whale debacle. Yeah, spaceX, Malcolm Collins: Malcolm. SpaceX. SpaceX, yeah, it might hit a whale, it might hit a shark. It's like, wha You you you know that this is just a bureaucrat trying to take down another person. They And you know that, okay, they're like, well, now Elon Musk is running the government, right? Like now he's running an [01:00:00] apartment was yeah, but he created a sundown on this department. He's running itself dissolves before this administration is even over. He's not trying to create inter institutional power in the way that the deep state did in the way that it protected these oligarchs time and time again. There's a reason why Camilla Rose. Raised over three times as much as Trump. In this last election cycle. There's what was it over a billion dollars? She wasted on her campaign Yeah, Simone Collins: the Malcolm Collins: reports did not look great, but I I do agree with you We do not condone this action. This man was a monster and a very very very bad person I'm just trying to like, go through the ethics of a decision like this, because I think that when I look at the other places this has been talked about, everyone's like, it's obviously unethical because it's against the law. And I'm like, whoa. Oh yeah. Simone Collins: And no, [01:01:00] laws are about maintaining social order and they work on average, but not always Malcolm Collins: the same. People are like, obviously what the insurance guy was doing was ethical because it was within the law. And it's like, well, I mean, obviously, sometimes laws are wrong, right? Like, I don't think the insurance guy should have been allowed to run his company the way he was running it. Simone Collins: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: I think that that was horrifying that that was happening. Like, do you think that people should just be going around doing vigilante justice? No, no, but I do think that people should stop Hitler. So it's like, where's the line, right? Like how bad does the person need to be before you need a Batman? Simone Collins: Yeah. Did Batman ever pursue corrupt capitalists in the shows or movies? Trying to think. Malcolm Collins: Oh, Superman certainly did with Lex Luthor. [01:02:00] Okay. I actually want to see an episode. I'll see if I can find an episode. If I can't find one, maybe somebody can talk about it in the comments. Where the villain in a superhero show was doing everything legally. Simone Collins: Ah, yeah, Malcolm Collins: that's the key. How do they handle this when the person is murdering people legally? Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: I just, I just personally, I'm, I'm like, I keep going through because so many people in the comments and read it and stuff, they were sharing stories about how like they watched their life slowly die as her claims kept being denied. And if I had seen that happen to somebody who I deeply cared about, I watched them slowly die over the course of years. And every day I was sending in claims What would I do that? Yeah, you'd lose it. I'd lose it. I'd effing lose it. If somebody, especially knowing that every year I was paying the person who was killing her, paying them on the off. Hope they might do the right thing this time that they were taking money from her [01:03:00] and from me. while watching her die, just so this guy could go on more fancy vacations. Now, I want to talk about who maybe did this. Because a lot of people have pointed out, oh, I think it's the wife. One, they were separated. And two, she immediately made an announcement that had weird wording, like, we were shattered to hear about. And then, Well, he Simone Collins: has kids too, right? I mean, Theoretically, the wife and the kids would be shattered. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that they lived in a separate house and everything like that. And there have been rumors that maybe he had started a divorce proceeding. Now that would have been an absolutely good reason to do something like this. I don't mean like a good, like ethically Simone Collins: good, No, no, no. But financially logical because yeah, if, if you're getting a divorce, then I'm presumably in all of their estate planning, normally stuff goes to the spouse first. If. Well, if you look at the Malcolm Collins: age of the kids who look quite old, these are like like, late teen kids. Okay. To me, that [01:04:00] implies that their marriage must've been at least around 10 years. If you look at when he became CEO, that was in 2021. If you look at when he made most of his money, that was pretty recently. And they lived in Florida. Now, I happen to be aware of how prenups work in Florida. Oh. And they are extremely strict. Yeah. Even though she got a divorce and they had a prenup, She did nothing. She could literally leave the relationship with exactly the amount of money she brought into the relationship if she was not pregnant. Simone Collins: Ooh, yikes, yeah. Malcolm Collins: It would be very easy to plant the blame on this guy. You know, she also said some stuff that was like intentionally like sort of hiding that she didn't quite understand how the industry worked when she apparently works at the doctor as well. So she wouldn't have been that poor. I think she was a doctor. But you know, she, she said some stuff that looks like she was hiding some things. Here's my thought on this. I think if she was the one who did it, she probably would have done it herself in some way. It's just too hard to hire Hitman safely. Simone Collins: It's not Especially if you're a doctor. I feel like there are plenty of ways that you will [01:05:00] know to slowly kill someone away in a way that they won't detect. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the way that's not easily detectable by morgues and stuff like that, heart attacks, something like that. If you're a doctor, you have access to the drugs to do that way easier than hiring a hitman. Yes. Simone Collins: Although, I imagine a lot of people are too cowardly to do it themselves, so. Malcolm Collins: I'm just saying hiring a hitman is difficult and really dangerous to do because you've got to, how do you even do that? Like you, you have to know Simone Collins: like a mob boss. You have to live with the liability of knowing that they know so they could always blackmail you and she would end up with a lot of money. So there'd be an incentive to blackmail her. So yeah, I guess if I were in her place and I wanted to kill my husband, I would find, especially considering her medical knowledge and that she could probably get access to medications. Yeah. It would make sense for her to do it. Plus the words on the bullets, that just seems so odd. I mean, no, that would have been Malcolm Collins: a good way to cover it. I mean, your husband's CEO of like an evil company. Oh, so Simone Collins: [01:06:00] make it look like it was a disgruntled Malcolm Collins: United Healthcare. It also, this is what I think it was. Simone Collins: Okay. Malcolm Collins: I don't think it was a family member of someone agreed. I think it was a genuine vigilante. Here is why if it was just a family member of someone begrieved, there are a ton of other insurance companies and while they may deny claims pointlessly less amount of the time, if you take them all together, it's probably more, maybe even double the amount that united health denies claims. So. Why did it happen to be one of them? Why did it happen to be a guy who apparently has never done a good thing in his life, recently defrauded a firefighter's pension and ran a company that he had run super evilly in the time that he ran them in a way that there's like no moral argument to be made in his defense. I almost get the impression somebody was looking for an excuse to be a vigilante and wanted to play out a superhero role. Speaker 35: Do you [01:07:00] think I feel good? When after some dude does some atrocious act, that I have to kill them? You think that gives me pleasure? No. Well, it does. No! Malcolm Collins: And I don't know. I often ask myself, Why haven't there been more vigilante superhero like characters in our society? Simone Collins: Why haven't there been Isn't there that guy who literally dressed up in superhero costumes? Malcolm Collins: But I mean, in an entire society that grew up reading superhero books and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Why haven't there been people who just like took a book and said, I'm going to find the most evil person who's getting away with it in this country. And I'm going to do something about it. Now in the superhero movies, it's easy. Those are crime bosses and stuff like that. In the real world, the FBI is going after crime bosses. You know, the police are going after crime bosses. Yeah. Yeah. You're not going to get after them in the same way that other organizations are. So if you sat down and say, I'm going to be a vigilante, Simone Collins: who [01:08:00] can't the government or justice department or FBI or CIA get, then you read some book Malcolm Collins: like the book, this guy likely read and you're like, Oh, and that's the thing. The book is what gets me. This seems maybe motivated from reading a book where the guy's like, I don't really value my life. And how many People don't value their lives anymore. The amount of, I mean, yeah, Simone Collins: that's pretty pervasive. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: I might be able to incrementally make this better for Dozens to hundreds of families that are watching their loved ones die unnecessarily every month Simone Collins: or even just provide them with some solace some feeling of justice when I'm sure you know that that when when anyone in your Family is suffering from a terrible illness You kind of feel like the world is just so deeply unfair and the existence of this guy adds insult to injury, maybe it's just one moment of Hey, at least there's that for all these people. Malcolm Collins: And yeah. And one thing I'd say is I, I do [01:09:00] feel very deeply for the family of everyone. He denied healthcare too. I'm sorry. I, what I'm saying is, look, this guy had kids sad that their dad died, but they're inheriting tens of millions of dollars that they stole from dying people. Are they giving that money back? Are they giving it to philanthropy? Like my family did? No. So, like, why am I supposed to have an additional amount of sympathy for them? You could say, have they done something wrong? Yes, they've kept the blood diamonds. Speaker 38: No, this place is uncle Danny's. You and me, we're family. Promise never Malcolm Collins: they may choose to not do that in the future in which my moral judgment of them will change in the future But as of now, My moral judgment of them is just neutral you know people have their parents die for nonsense reasons all the time You can't be like oh because this person had kids if he was actively involved in raising the kids fine But he didn't seem to be he was [01:10:00] separated and living in a different house and so I have to say, why do his kids matter so much more than the dozens of other kids that were left parentless every year? You know, like, explain, like, like, why, why? And so this comment section is going to be a bloodbath. I haven't seen any public figure really come down as harshly on one side of this as I have. I know that this is an unpopular stance. I know that a lot of people will hate me for this dance. I know a lot of wealthy people will hate me for this dance. But I think that we need to, like, grow a moral backbone as a society again. And say, either, if politicians want to b***h about this, which they have been b******g about people being happy about this, it's like, why didn't you make what he was doing illegal then? Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: That's your job, politicians, making this s**t illegal. Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: we will be very, very angry with you. And we will write you a letter telling you how angry we are Simone Collins: Well, I mean, there's this huge conversation [01:11:00] about the healthcare industry in the United States anyway. I mean, the fact that we allow the existence of insurance companies that have caused all healthcare costs to balloon as much as they have is, is insane. So, I mean, any policymaker who's morally negatively judging people who are celebrating this assassination should instead be focusing on fixing a very broken healthcare system in the United States. They're also culpable. Malcolm Collins: Why on every single Reddit thread I saw about this, which judges like the average opinion of people, Why were they all happy about this? Why everywhere I go online, where it's looking at average sentiment, In the Facebook reacts here, you had 25 K laugh, crying reacts to two K sad, crying reacts. And 1. 7 K care reacts. Simone Collins: Oh, dear. I mean, there's a bunch of elements to this, right? There's the anti capitalist element. So a lot of people are just excited because [01:12:00] they hate all capitalists. Anyone who works for, makes money from a large corporation is I believe in decent capital. You're not that person. Yeah. Well, Malcolm Collins: generations, you can be a capitalist without killing people. Simone Collins: Yeah, but I mean, I think a lot of people are reacting just to that. And then a lot of other people have experienced. United healthcare and they're for obvious reasons, very happy about that. It's just, it's messed up. Glad it wasn't Brian Johnson. Cause that scared me for a moment. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think there are very few people in the world who. I would be like, Oh, but I like, I'm not sure. Like an example of another group, the people who okayed the and hid how dangerous the they were giving to people was in this country. Oh, the family did this. They, they own the companies that did this their companies obscured. That was dangerous. They got tons of people addicted [01:13:00] to it and they basically single handedly caused the addiction crisis which is bigger than any addiction crisis our country has ever had. You can see our episode on this. Speaker 47: Vengeance. Speaker 48: Bruce Wayne? What? Oh my god. What? Yeah, you No. You're Bruce Wayne. How Why could you even say that? Your goatee. Speaker 46: Maybe I'm just copying Bruce Wayne. Cause he's like, the coolest guy in Gotham. I Speaker 44: mean, he's not that cool. He's just rich. Speaker 46: Oh, this is the classic discrimination that handsome billionaires face every day. He doesn't actually have a billion dollars, d*****s. Most of his fortune is invested in Wayne Enterprises. Speaker 44: And does Wayne Enterprises happen to make dark armored vehicles? Speaker 46: Yeah, but mostly opioids. Oh my god, really? And [01:14:00] opioid addiction recovery pills. Speaker 48: Oh my god. You're so stupid. You're a villain. Ha! Speaker 46: Save your jokes for the Jokester. Simone Collins: Yeah, they're famously Malcolm Collins: there are other instances where I'm like, but there's few, there are few, few, few, few, few, few. Simone Collins: Well, and they've done it already. This guy was still doing it. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: And that's, that's also differently. The Sackler family also has been Simone Collins: successfully. Prosecuted. I mean, you could argue no one could put a price on the damage they've done, but they have paid a lot of money and, and been quite dragged through the mud. Malcolm Collins: He was ramping up these efforts. Simone Collins: So Oh, he was leaning into it, was he? Oh, dear. Okay. I didn't realize that well, no, I mean, if you look at Malcolm Collins: the gross profits, Simone Collins: Oh yeah, well, he certainly wasn't changing his stance and suddenly he Malcolm Collins: was increasing it is the point I was making. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: And if this continued within his company, other companies in the industry would follow it. Why [01:15:00] not? Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Just like when American Airlines decided to become antagonistic to our travel agencies and then everyone was like, Oh, yeah, let's throw them under the bus. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Cause they realize, Oh, you can't actually be a dick to your customers in that way. But for him being addicted to a customer, isn't a travel agency going out of business as a person's mother dying or kid dying. Simone Collins: Exactly. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: All right. Did I change your mind on this Simone? Are you? Oh, very much. Simone Collins: I will never advise anyone to assassinate anyone or break any laws whatsoever, but I 100 percent understand the mirth in response to this, to this assassination and yeah wow, that it's, it just saddens me to think how, you know. Many people have been hurt [01:16:00] by these corporate policies. That's really heartbreaking, but I also just hate them. The health care system. I mean, the problem is the United States health care system. I wouldn't want to do health care in another country, right? It's really good here. The quality of care, the technology. It's it's the hospitals. It's great. I love it. Right. But then I wish that we could just have that and get rid of the insurance industry. As it exists now, it's just like when you think it very similar to the school system, right? The amount of money that everyone pays when they just want to get health care, but instead it goes toward bureaucracy. That does nothing to do with anyone's benefit. No societal benefit whatsoever. Similar to the schooling system where a huge portion of it just goes to admin, benefiting absolutely no one. It makes me very angry. And I, I'm going to say this [01:17:00] isn't just this one guy who's ruining everything. It is an entire industry that is extremely corrupt. That has to be dealt with. Not an entire Malcolm Collins: industry. His numbers were double that of the industry standard. That doesn't change. But yeah, but even Simone Collins: the best of health insurance companies, It's health Malcolm Collins: insurance company is Kaiser Permanente, which has a 7 percent denial rate. It's Kaiser Permanente Simone Collins: is still playing its part in driving up healthcare costs because small doctors offices have hired additional staff just to negotiate with them, just to lower their, you know, like to maximize their profits and like this, the whole game created by insurance companies in the health insurance world creates a huge amount of waste. That whole dance. And that's what I hate. Yes. Yeah, I Malcolm Collins: agree with that. I just, I just want to push back on this idea of this guy is no different from any other thing. He's not. No, Simone Collins: obviously he, he and a pond full of piranhas is the uniquely pernicious and toothy and aggressive piranha who does so much more damage. But [01:18:00] I want to Malcolm Collins: actually flip this back on you in a way that might change the way you see this. Okay. He was increasing these practices. We can see this from the data. Every year he was increasing the practices. Yeah. You, me, and our kids are on UnitedHealthcare. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: How would you feel if due to him increasing these practices every year, because he was getting no pushback from shareholders, one of our kids died? Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean. This could have saved the Malcolm Collins: life of one of our kids. Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, this could have. I mean, this happening. It's true. And we've already. Done kind of dangerous things with our family's health because we can't afford Malcolm Collins: to get because they denied things when we had a rabies exposure and we had the state say our kids had had a rabies exposure. And the state, the state, like CDC gave us a note, not a doctor, the CDC gave Simone Collins: us the, the, the county, but yeah. Malcolm Collins: The, the county disease [01:19:00] control like the Pennsylvania Disease Control, sorry, Pennsylvania Disease Control saying, Give this to your health insurance provider, and they said, no, for rabies. Do you know how horrible it is to die to rabies? Like, one of our kids may still die from a decision this guy made because rabies takes about a year to form. Yeah, I mean, that's just our kids family, just a heads up. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: And the reason why the rabies one is so important is because they're deny thing, right? They're like, oh, well, maybe we can get a few more days out of this. Maybe we can get a few weeks out of this. Rabies needs to be taken within 24 hours. Simone Collins: Yeah, we, we didn't deny Malcolm Collins: prevented us from getting it. Yeah, it was not cool. So consider that Simone, when you think about this person's life and to all of you who, Oh, you're such a monster, Malcolm. What if it was your kids? You don't care. [01:20:00] You don't care. You'd say, yeah, I'd suck that up. I'd let him take my money. F**k me while my kid died. Sorry, I just. I just have so little sympathy for these deontologists who are deontological in a way that obviously makes them the bad guys. Simone Collins: Yeah, there's definitely a place at which following the rules becomes an inconceivably evil act, for sure. Inconceivably evil. This guy did a 9 11 every year. Well, and I think the key thing, too, is to understand that A lot of people think that as long as they follow the rules, they're not doing anything wrong. And maybe this guy had convinced himself of that. And so he literally thought, well, I'm not doing anything morally wrong. I'm not doing anything. Also did Malcolm Collins: securities fraud defrauding his investors. He wasn't even [01:21:00] interested in fiduciary duty. Simone Collins: Well, yeah, yeah, it's, you know, Malcolm Collins: I don't believe he was a bad person, but I believe that he was a type of person who, you know, if you look at like capitalists, there's like different types of capitalist people, you know, my family might have intergenerational wealth, but if it's because often they remade the money every generation, like, okay, so for example, people might hear your dad, He must have been super wealthy and inherited a bunch of money in the company from his dad. Do you know how he ended up running the company? So his granddad who was the previous of the company ended up taking a million dollar loan out without my father's permission, Under my father's name and this is when my father was earning a fairly median salary Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-7: From what I remember at the time he had no significant savings. He hadn't inherited any money and he was earning a salary of $60,000 a year. Simone Collins: Yeah, it was Malcolm Collins: He yeah, my father ended up making tons [01:22:00] of money because he grew the company a ton But he would have ended his life Yeah. It's just very much like ruthless care. Like sure, son, you can take over the family company. I'll just go to a banker and give the debt to ensure that you own a majority of shares now. Without your permission, because he knew the banker and it was an old Texas family. Oh, Simone Collins: that's okay. I was wondering how that. Oh, yeah. Malcolm Collins: They were friends. They were in some club together. And so he just went to the banker and he goes, Oh, you don't need to ask my, my grandson. Just put it on his account right here. Just, just put Simone Collins: it on his tab. Just to come Malcolm Collins: there. Simone Collins: Not a problem. Well, I, yeah, I just had figured that perhaps he'd given your dad a pile of papers to sign and your dad had just trusting him signed them. No, no, no, no, no, Malcolm Collins: no, no, no, Simone Collins: no, no, no, no, no, Malcolm Collins: no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, He just gave Simone Collins: them to me. He gave them to me. Because isn't that, that's fraud. That's kind of super Malcolm Collins: weird. It is fraud. But it's also the way the [01:23:00] old boys club worked back then. Simone Collins: Yeah, when also like, what are you gonna do? You know, sue your dad. Do you want to really make Christmases that awkward? Granddad, by the way. The Malcolm Collins: dad actually totally disapproved of this and hated the granddad. Oh, that's That's nice. The dad was really nice. The dad was the one who, my dad's dad was the one who became a congressman. His dad was kind of a dick. The one who took out the dead in my dad's name. Simone Collins: Gosh. Malcolm Collins: Well, because he gave all his money. The reason he got in a fight with his son is because he also, every generation they do this, they gave all their money to charity and his son was really mad about it. So he increased all of his shares in the company instead of to the family, to the local Baptist church. That's what the falling out was about. And that's why he didn't give my dad his shares in the company because his shares in the company were bequeathed to the Baptist Church. He took out debt to give those shares to my dad. So you can think of it as horrible, but also it's kind of ethical in a way. Like no intergenerational wealth transfer. You're going to get fucked. Every, every penny I've made, I'm giving to a charity I care about. [01:24:00] But then my dad kind of did the same thing to me. So whatever, I don't mind it. I'm, I, I, I'm, I'm glad that I don't have any of that weight on my shoulders, you know? Simone Collins: I, yeah, I don't, I don't think parents do favors to their children by giving them huge inheritances. Yeah. I do think that surprising them with amounts is good. If you have the luxury of doing that, I don't think that's going to be possible for us also because I want to be super transparent with our kids and money. But giving them some token amount that might help with the down payment on a house, for example is huge, especially these days, if you can do that, but something where you get like an allowance, you know, like these trust fund kids that have like monthly allowances that really prevent them from getting jobs, prevent them from growing up. That's bad. So basically like something that might cover. Catastrophic medical care or down payment on a house good anything beyond that something that like props up a lifestyle bad Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you Simone I've had a great time talking [01:25:00] to you. What are we doing for dinner tonight? Simone Collins: coconut rice Hopefully better this time because I did both full fat coconut milk and only coconut milk, no water plus more salt plus lemon zest. So we'll see if that is very Malcolm Collins: interesting. Coconut and lemon. That's an interesting flavor combo. Simone Collins: I don't know. It was supposed to be lime, but we don't have lime. So Malcolm Collins: no, I'm just interested, but the lime and the coconut, you know what I mean? Speaker 50: Work all night and drink a rum come Mr. Tallyman, tally me banana Will I come and be one go home? Simone Collins: We'll see. Malcolm Collins: And for the meat. For the meat. What are we doing? Just another dang dang sauce? Same as last Simone Collins: night, but with, well, we can Malcolm Collins: do garlic again. I could have picked it up at Walmart, the oyster sauce. Oh, whoopsies. Sorry. All right. Well, we'll just do dang dang and a little bit of Well, Simone Collins: yeah, if you could get out the sauces you want to use then I would. All right. All Malcolm Collins: right. [01:26:00] I love you to death Simone. You are a great wife. Simone Collins: I love you too, Malcolm. You are perfect. Speaker 43: Take the cheese, Josie. There's more. Titan's cheese? Titan, do you want more flower shaped cheese? Aw, that's so nice of you, Torsten. Did you guys shape the cheese? What shape is the cheese, Titan? That is a dinosaur nugget. Yeah, and it's flashing and I can see it falling away. This is my dinosaur nugget. Titan, you have one in your plate already. Why don't you take a bite? My dinosaur nugget. Octavian, what are you doing? I died. You died? Alright, can [01:27:00] you also eat your dinner? Titan, you like your dinosaur nugget? Something stopped me! Something stopped you? No, something shot me! Shot? Oh, something shot you. Well, you know how to get your hearts back is you have to eat meatballs. Why don't you do that? Good idea. I'm strong! Good idea. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com