On December 4, in New York City, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered on his way into a shareholders’ meeting. No tears should be shed for Thompson. He was struck down by bullets engraved with the principles he lived by: to maximize his insurance company’s profits by delaying care, denying life saving treatments, and condemning untold thousands to needless suffering and death. Gut-wrenching stories of loved ones lost to insurance denials flooded social media. Doctors confirmed the company’s cruelty. A condolence post for Thompson received more than 70,000 laughing reactions. As one worker wrote: “Sorry, my sympathy is out of network.”
The capitalist media outrage at posts “devaluing” Thompson’s life rings hollow. It’s capitalism—and its accomplices in the healthcare industry—that have cheapened life. In 2023, UnitedHealth Group raked in $22 billion in profits (Forbes.com, 1/12/24). Thompson was richly rewarded for playing his part to ration healthcare, with an annual compensation package of more than $10 million. Under his leadership, his company denied as much as 49 percent of medically necessary care (Forbes.com, 12/6/24). The bosses call this good business; we call it mass murder.
The overwhelming support for Thompson’s apparent shooter, Luigi Mangione, reflects the raw rage of millions of workers who navigate a healthcare system designed not to heal, but to profit. Globally, capitalism condemns countless people to early graves through racist and sexist inequality, hunger and poor nutrition, environmental poisons, and preventable disease. It kills countless more through healthcare systems that put the profits of hospital, pharmaceutical, and insurance capitalists over human lives. Workers’ fury at Thompson and his ilk is righteous anger.
But vigilante violence and assassinations are not solutions; the bosses can always find another ruthless executive to fill an open slot. What’s needed is organized revolutionary violence, rooted in communist politics. What the ruling class fears most is an international, multiracial, class-conscious working class led into battle by a revolutionary communist party. We need a mass communist movement that will smash all of the bloodsucking bosses and replace the nightmare profit system with a communist world that abolishes money and private property. Only then can our class build a society where good healthcare is a basic human right, not a product to be sold to those who can afford it. Join Progressive Labor Party, and fight for a world where our lives can be lived to their healthiest and fullest!
Capitalist healthcare: a racist, sexist, imperialist horror
The capitalist healthcare system is a death machine. It thrives on neglect, lack of access, and routinely terrible care to profit from workers’ suffering. Healthcare is a commodity, designed to keep workers alive just long enough for the bosses to extract their labor before discarding them. Despite being the richest imperialist nation, the U.S. has one of the lowest life expectancy rates among industrialized countries. Current life expectancy is estimated at barely 79 years—six years less than in Japan, five years less than in Italy and Spain, even less than in relatively poor countries like Barbados, Poland, or Estonia (macrotrends.net).
Each year, more than 40,000 working-age people in the U.S. die from a lack of coverage, more than those who die from kidney disease (Physicians for a National Program, 9/17/2024). Racism and sexism fuel this death machine. Black workers have the highest rates of premature deaths from heart disease, cancer, Covid-19, and infant mortality (Peterson-KFF, 04/24/23). Black women are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than white women (Centers for Disease Control, 4/8/2023). In predominantly Black Cleveland zip codes, life expectancy is up to 20 years shorter than for nearby white neighborhoods (Cleveland News, 12/19/2024). But while Black workers suffer most, the profit system is deadly for all workers. Life expectancy among non-college educated white men in the U.S., especially in rural poor areas, is declining due to “deaths of despair”: suicide, alcoholism, and opioid overdoses (Vox, 10/4/2023).
Capitalist healthcare is even deadlier in most places outside the U.S. The World Health Organization reports an 18-year life expectancy gap between the wealthiest and poorest countries (WHO, 04/04/2019). Infectious diseases like Mpox and Ebola are devastating the global working class from Africa and Asia to Latin America. Over 40 percent of child deaths under 5 are linked to preventable diseases (WHO, 06/29/2024).
Twenty-nine countries are reporting cholera outbreaks, with one billion workers and children at risk (UNOCHA, 1/15/24). More than 1.2 million workers in the U.S., and nearly 15 million globally, have been needlessly killed by Covid-19 (Newsweek, 12/19/24).
Even in model countries with so-called “universal” healthcare, capitalist exploitation and inequality remains. In Denmark, patients must pay additional fees for mental health care and other services, the equivalent of three hours of labor for someone earning the minimum wage (DW, 03/10/21). While Europe provides broader access to healthcare than the U.S., it still puts profit over people.
Communism—the only solution!
Under capitalism, the bosses hold individuals responsible to change their lifestyles, prevent disease, and bear the burden of the cost of treatment and medicines. This ensures that healthcare remains a commodity and never a public good, while the working class shoulders the cost.
Communism, by contrast, is built on collective responsibility and makes the health of all a priority. After the great communist revolutions in the Soviet Union and China, when the working class briefly held state power, we saw what healthcare for people—instead of profit—can achieve. In the 1960s, the Communist Party of China launched campaigns to educate the masses and improve their health. It mobilized millions to improve public hygiene and eradicate diseases like schistosomiasis, which led to liver damage, kidney failure, bladder cancer, and infertility. Life expectancy soared, infectious diseases were eliminated, and safe abortions were made accessible.
The return of capitalist rule in the Soviet Union and China has devastated the lives and health of the working class worldwide. Workers are now stuck in an era of rising fascism, racism, sexism, and weak class-consciousness. Disillusionment with failed reforms and dead-end electoral politics has left many more cynical about our collective power and vulnerable to the appeal of lone-wolf vigilante types.
But adventurist violence is far from revolutionary. In fact, it emboldens rulers to repress us even more. Vigilantism shows a lack of confidence in the working class as the essential gravediggers of capitalism. As Lenin wrote in Iskra: “Shots fired by the ‘elusive individuals’ who are losing faith in the possibility of marching in formation, working hand in hand with the masses, always end in smoke.” History proves that only the collective force of millions, led by a disciplined communist party, can crush the capitalist rulers and build a society that puts people first.
Communism—a society without money, exploitation, racism, or sexism—will be run by workers to meet the needs of the entire working class. We’ll need both revolutionary urgency and revolutionary patience to achieve this vision.
The killing of Brian Thompson exposes the brutality of the system he served. While we don’t condone such isolated acts, they point to the seething anger of our class—and to the opportunity before us. The Progressive Labor Party calls on workers to channel their rage into building a mass movement for communist revolution. Every picket line, protest, and direct action will help prepare us for the inevitable destruction of capitalism. Every worker that joins our Party is another nail in the bosses’ coffin. Together, we can build the world we deserve. Join us!
