• Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    311
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    5 days ago

    This claims to be his story. I haven’t verified it, but I have no reason not to believe it. Basically, UHC tortured his mother for years through denial of care, then they did the same to him.

    I would note that he is 26 years old: He likely just aged out of his parents’ health insurance policy, and I would guess that he can’t get decent coverage on his own due to his pre-existing condition.

    Edit: This has since been described as impersonation. While there is certainly a truth to it, it is not the truth.

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      106
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      13 days ago

      Because of the ACA (Obamacare) requirements, he can’t be refused or charged more for coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

      Whether that insurance denies claims for treatment, however, is still very much in play. I’ve heard you should ask the names and certification of the person or people responsible for the denial of your claim, in writing. Because a lot of the time it’s an algorithm or an unqualified peon, and the company can get in trouble for that.

        • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          12 days ago

          I imagine you mean they won’t, and you may be right. But too many people don’t even start trying to fight denials, which is why insurance companies do it. Often it doesn’t take a huge pushback to get them to change, especially if it would expose their corrupt practices. Of course, sometimes they are obdurate, and United Healthcare is one of the worst.

          As for the ACA, it’s still true, at least until Trump takes office.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        68
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        13 days ago

        I, too, am curious. But, I read this part of a short story in The Things They Carried, many, many, years ago, and it stuck with me:

        You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let’s say, and afterward you ask, “Is it true?” and if the answer matters, you’ve got your answer.

        For example, we’ve all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies.

        Is it true?

        The answer matters.

        You’d feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it’s just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen - and maybe it did, anything’s possible even then you know it can’t be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it’s a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, “The fuck you do that for?” and the jumper says, “Story of my life, man,” and the other guy starts to smile but he’s dead.

        That’s a true story that never happened.

        I don’t know that this article was written by Luigi Mangione, or if Luigi Mangione killed the CEO. But, I do know that this story is true, even if it never happened.

        • affiliate@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          18
          ·
          edit-2
          13 days ago

          i think there are two different meanings of truth here, and it sounds like one of them might be referring to aletheia. from the wikipedia page:

          Heidegger gave an etymological analysis of aletheia and drew out an understanding of the term as “unconcealedness”.[6] Thus, aletheia is distinct from conceptions of truth understood as statements which accurately describe a state of affairs (correspondence), or statements which fit properly into a system taken as a whole (coherence). Instead, Heidegger focused on the elucidation of how an ontological “world” is disclosed, or opened up, in which things are made intelligible for human beings in the first place, as part of a holistically structured background of meaning.

          edit: just want to say that i agree with the message, and i think it’s true that things don’t have to actually happened in order to be true in some sense. i think the term aletheia can be helpful for making the distinction and wanted to share it for that reason

        • And009@lemmynsfw.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          13 days ago

          New concept, still confused. Sounds like a combination of ‘what’ and ‘why’. The ‘why’ always matters but doesn’t precede the ‘what’.

          Like a death by accident, doesn’t matter if someone was drunk or sober. Dead, is ultimately dead.

          • Jerkface@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            11
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            13 days ago

            The truth lies in the heart of the beholder. If the story speaks to you in some particular way, if it resonates deeply enough, then it’s speaking to something you know to be true about the world as you know it. Something which remains true regardless of whether the story is factual or not.

            • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              21
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              13 days ago

              It speaks to something you believe to be true. There is a difference and it’s rather important.

              Populist political campaigns speak to such “truths” all the time but the belief of a lot of people that [insert outgroup here] are responsible for all the bad things and that we can all live a great life if we just let [insert strongman here] have absolute power so he can punish them is still just a belief, not truth. Declaring it to be the truth just devalues the concept of truth.

              We’re all biased. We should try not to confuse our biases with reality.

              • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                8
                ·
                13 days ago

                Not just populists: many groups have less concern for the truth across the whole political spectrum. Example: feminists and their claim that women make an ever decreasing amount of money relative to men. This claim is based on a single study that compared sweeping aggregate data, and then called the whole thing an actionable issue.

                The problem is that when you get into the weeds of the claim, and you should always do so, you find that there are so many confounding variables that went unaccounted for that the study cannot reasonably conclude anything. Meanwhile women have been graduating at higher rates since the 90s, younger generations of women make more money on average than men, and women have more job security than men. Women also get substantial benefits throughout their education and are considered a minority class for the purposes of hiring in many jurisdictions.

                Be wary of people driven by agendas, even (or perhaps especially) the agendas you think are good.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      45
      ·
      13 days ago

      I really hope this is genuine, because whoever wrote this did an amazing job of conveying their feelings and experiences in a very short piece of literature.

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        13 days ago

        This does seem very amateurish (Gladiator, Greenday, “smile through the pain”). These are emo tropes. I’d be disappointed to know it’s him.

          • aislopmukbang@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            13 days ago

            Not necessarily but basing an idealogy in fantasy (as he talks about the emperor being god in gladiator) neglects reality. Anger and whatever sense of righteousness you subscribe to should be based firmly in reality, otherwise you’ll find you are acting on nothing but hypotheticals.

            • Lumidaub@feddit.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              14
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              13 days ago

              I don’t see the issue in quoting works of fiction if you think they express something you’re trying to say. People quote Shakespeare all the time to make a point but nobody cares because that’s old and accepted. No I’m not saying Gladiator is on a level with Shakespeare but there’s a weird imbalance in what you’re allowed to quote in your argument and what not. If the imagery spoke to him, why not?

              • iii@mander.xyz
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                13 days ago

                I don’t see the issue in quoting works of fiction

                Otherwise the whole of marxism would be off limits

          • tetris11@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            13 days ago

            I liked that the writer stuck with clear and simple english instead of flowering up their prose, but I just feel that using borrowed quips and popart philosophy isn’t an honest way to write. It feels more in line with a teen or a young adult trying to find their voice in the words of others (and we’ve all been there)

            • Lumidaub@feddit.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              13 days ago

              I still feel being “disappointed” is harsh. He’s 26 and just wanted his thoughts out. He may have been trying, maybe even subconsciously, to emulate some literary devices more or less successfully in an effort to better convey his feelings but I really don’t think the point was to write great literature.

              • tetris11@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                13 days ago

                To theirs credit, the part about watching their mother suffer was very relatable and felt extremely honest. I guess I was hoping that they would open with something like that instead of talking about their philosophy first. You’re right though, the writer is likely young and I shouldn’t expect so much.

  • S_H_K@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    181
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    13 days ago

    Is chilling how thenwhole internet is fed up a story of a man before his sentence. If this guy is innocent his whole life is already exposed forever just for memes and a penny. We are the big brother and we suck.

    • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      129
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      13 days ago

      The “we did it reddit!” phrase comes from redditors trying to track down suspects of the boston bombing. Redditors found a guy they strongly suspected, then found personal info on them and began harrassing him and family, including death threats.

      It was the wrong person.

      Imagine being that person accused! One day just living life, the next experiencing a horrible bombing, the next being tracked down by a misguided internet randos on a manhunt.

      This is why having some basic privacy is important before you need it

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        63
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        it wasnt the internet that exposed him to the media, it was the police and feds who sold him out to the media. There is no “we did it” here. “They” did it.

      • KubeRoot@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        I’m sorry, but just one detail from what I’m seeing on the linked article - “that person” committed suicide a month before any of that went down. I don’t think it invalidates the point, even though being alive and present to be interrogated might’ve changed things, but it comes off comical when talking about how horrible the experience must’ve been.

    • JoYo 🇺🇸@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      37
      ·
      edit-2
      13 days ago

      im big skeptical of the photos and videos they’ve been circulating. everything about this investigation is sus.

  • superkret@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    139
    ·
    12 days ago

    He did everything right and believed in the system.
    And then he himself, or someone close to him, got a diagnosis that ensured life-long medical debt and poverty.

    • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      82
      ·
      12 days ago

      He seems to have had a spinal surgery and had pins put in his spine. Books he’s looked at seems to indicate chronic pain and fights with insurance companies.

      It was exactly what every single person thought who wasn’t paid to think otherwise.

      • sudoshakes@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        60
        ·
        12 days ago

        Had exact same fusion performed.

        4 screws, 2 rods to connect them, and a 3-d sintered titanium cage between the vertebrae.

        I can attest to the chronic pain and wanting to armor a bulldozer

        • cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          22
          ·
          edit-2
          12 days ago

          chronic pain conditions are something our healthcare and disability systems specifically don’t handle well and I haven’t met anyone suffering from them that doesn’t want to [redacted].

          my experience with it has been nebulous and hard to diagnose but incredibly disabling. certain treatments like acupuncture or cupping that specifically target fascia, or shit like somatic therapy, aren’t really legitimized by insurance so absent of a diagnosis with a known intervention your choices are to go to a pain clinic and take something possibly addictive or pay your way into alt medicine providers who can either be exactly who you need or hokey grifters.

          and I can only imagine the hell that insurance companies put you through for surgical interventions they are supposed to cover but definitely don’t want to. reading my partner’s rejection letters from her company disability provider has been fucking fascinating

          • sudoshakes@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            12 days ago

            Many chronic pain patients suffer from something called central sensitization.

            I do, though didn’t really know about it in detail before finding a clinic that treats those patients.

            I did 3 weeks at Mayo hospital’s pain rehabilitation clinic to run their program for patients that are all specifically central sensitization. You go in a bit blind not knowing what the program is, intentionally on their part.

            It is run by several world class cognitive behavioral therapy doctors, and a team of nurses and physical therapists that work with you daily. It is… aggressive. You have no option to not do physical therapy or cardio, of which there is 2 hours and over 20 exercises to do every day. No matter how you hurt or feel. People who were there were all objectively seriously injured at one point and had like me real issues and real disabilities. The most empathetic thing that could do for you is to not acknowledge your symptoms and just make you do it.

            They also took all and I mean ALL medications. Couldn’t have miralax. No advil. No gas medicine from the gas station. Nothing taken for symptoms. You could take things prescribed for conditions like aside reflux disease or insulin for diabetes, but nothing for how you felt.

            So imagine having to do 2 hours of intense exercise, giving up all medications in about 3 days time, and doing things cold turkey for 3 weeks without any room to tap out. On top of that it is 35 hours a week of lectures on various topics related to the condition of centralized sensitization, chronic pain stress management, biofeedback, depression, anxiety, and skills to better enable you to live life.

            They even held 1 hour sessions a week with family to summarize key lectures and give Q&A for them to help the patients be better supported in this weird chronic pain thing most families don’t understand.

            It’s intense and not for everyone, but I went from being unable to do any physical activity, even walking the dog while I was taking pain medications and muscle relaxants etc. I went from that to biking 10 miles a day, at a 3:45 minute mile pace. I started their reconditioning program at 1 lb dumbbells doing curls for ten reps. I am now, 8 months after the program, curling 30 lb dumbbells and doing my own 2 hour workouts every week day.

            I am still in incredible amounts of pain. They could not and will not fix the underlying causes physically or biologically.

            However, they change patient lives with the CBT focus on how to live a more function filled life with chronic pain. They make us more active and better able to live a life worth living, within the constraints of moderate, sustainable, and adaptable.

            Anyway, it changed me life and I would recommend it to anyone if they are in the long term battle with chronic pain. I saw specialists and got dozens of medications and scans for things. Surgical procedures, injections, blocks… you name it.

            Only this worked to give me part of my life back.

            Good luck to you

            • lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              11 days ago

              Intense training program, in the blind

              They take away all medication, including pain medication

              Intentionally and empathetically ignore your symptoms and tell you to just go with it, as if it was how we treat mental patients

              Intentionally will not fix the underlying causes

              “World class” “doctors” and behavioural theorists

              So basically, they torture you until you accept the pain and just take it, rather than seeking out an actual solution?

              Wow, that defintively would inspire me to kill a health CEO. Or, in this case, a health theorist.

              • sudoshakes@reddthat.com
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                edit-2
                11 days ago

                It may seem like that is the case for a bit, and often does to many patients. Myself included.

                Keep in mind the target population is patients who are centralized sensitization patients. There are alpha channels of nerves that through real physical injury have created a feedback loop in the nervous system with the brain.

                In these patients, who do have very real injuries, the pain levels are outside expectations for the things we can test, scan, see on imaging etc.

                The mechanism is complex but essentially you can think of it as the nerve bundles of specific types are far more sensitive to stimuli and the brain becomes far more sensitive to signals received.

                Breaking this feedback loop, which is often fed by avoidance of things, is important.

                As for data, they have published papers in many journals with more than 20,000 patients who have been through the clinic showing progress improvement. Reductions in standard assessments for depression, improved mobility and exercise function, as well as removed reliance on medications / the polypharmacy causing underlying greater symptoms is proven in their large data set.

                A lot of the mental model that has real impacts to physical symptoms revolves around breaking previously unrealized classic and operant conditioning that patients with this chronic pain sensitization often have present.

                To correct and see the clear picture without clouding it, medications must be removed from the picture as polypharmacy issues can create a mess of problems that seem like they are bodily in origin but are in fact from the medication interactions.

                It is a program vetted by the chronic pain treatment community for over 20 years, and the data is well reviewed, with every hour of the time a patient spends there carefully considered and measured for efficacy.

                The program gets referral from many physicians in various other disciplines within and outside their hospital system for patients that meet their criteria.

                To be clear, this is not a fly by night theory. It’s one of the best hospitals in the world with a program of pharmacists, doctors, PTs, nurses and supporting specialists who all meet daily per patient and make individual care plans. You seem them daily for hours a day. They monitor blood work and vitals as well as metabolic data as they taper medications. It’s deeply unpleasant but designed very intentionally to help. It does help.

                Anecdotally, a patient story:

                They came into the program malnourished, on a feeding tube, intense abdominal pain, GI bleeding, and on significant opiates to tackle pain levels from the GI issues.

                On discharge, the patient had no expressed pain, was back to eating normally without the feeding tube, and was regaining weight . GI bleeding stopped.

                6 months later they went back on pain medication from a pain physician and were right back in the ER with the same symptoms. Following the program’s instructions the same reversal took place again!

                The power of the operant conditioning from taking medications when feeling symptoms is a powerful one that impacts the baseline arousal states of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. These impact all sorts of bodily processes which seem counter intuitive to apply to physical real problems, but the results speak volumes.

                Everyone arrives a skeptic. I left seeing benefit in my life as a patient who these things apply to. I am not uneducated, I have created software to run clinical cancer trials for years. Yet even with that formal intellectual background I was missing things that had impact to my health condition. The average patient has less exposure to these things, and I spent 10 years seeking help for the pain before this from many physicians. Many things were tried. So all of that experience and exposure to alternative therapies and modalities to this one was brought in with skeptical critical analysis of their methods.

                There is an element of trust required, and it is HARD, but the easy path of medicate or cut it out is often not the solution with patients like us. Since pain is very much a central nervous system process, treating as such makes sense.

            • cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              12 days ago

              I am so happy to hear you found something that worked for you and it sounds like it was a hell of a fight but that kind of intense care can be so impactful if it’s the right fit for you. It sounds not unlike a good psychiatric crisis center but more focused on treating physical symptoms that are often deeply interlinked with mental health in a way few providers treat effectively.

              ultimately no two cases are the same and I feel like I’ve needed the opposite treatment in some respects. I hit a wall with PT and strength conditioning and while it’s definitely still an important part of my recovery, it seems that isolated muscle strength is not the problem, and it’s actually possible I’ve been overtraining to try to feel better. best working theory is I’m hypermobile and instinctively locking my joints to retain stability. I generally have a lack of sensation and don’t feel much direct pain, until my posture / muscle arrangement is so out of whack that I can’t function anymore.

              so the work has been more focused on building bodily awareness and imporoving proprioception, and when I work out it tends to be pretty freeform and meditative and I have to aim for working out less than I want to but making the most of it. I have a provider who does specialized massage therapy combined with somatic work, and acupuncture has been an amazing low-impact way to poke into my fascial tissue and get it to chill the fuck out a bit. PTSD work and psilocybin have also been really helpful. I needed a muscle relaxer in the early days but am glad my doc stopped prescribing it after a few months. definitely getting back to feeling more normal though I suspect it won’t ever fully go away. but I’m happy to have been forced into building up this much awareness of how my body works.

  • snooggums@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    98
    ·
    13 days ago

    The simplest answer is he was pissed at UHC for denying medical claims for him or the ones he loved, and the CEO had dialed up the denials so an obvious target.

    • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      32
      ·
      13 days ago

      iirc on one of his social medias the banner was a back X-ray with medical nails or screws in it. I assume he (or someone he knows) was having back issues and got denied.

      • Ostrichgrif@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        13 days ago

        His former college roommate said he always struggled with back problems which is one reason he tried to work out so much

  • aramis87@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    89
    ·
    13 days ago

    Someone said he was in a surfing accident and needed pins/plates put in his back. His profile (https://i.imgur.com/2g1ZGBa.png) shows an X-ray of a back that’s had surgery done on it.

    He’s 26 and just come off his parents’ healthcare. [Except his family is wealthy, so I’m not sure if this one is relevant or not.]

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        13 days ago

        Doesn’t his family own nursing homes and other businesses? Shouldn’t that be wealthy enough for healthcare? You would think there are some connections to the medical sector there as well.

        • zephorah@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          17
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          13 days ago

          Nursing homes are typically run poorly because they’re in a position that has a hard max on profit. Medicare pays what it pays and that is all. Unlike a hospital which can just make things up and charge whatever, alongside pricy elective surgeries, nursing homes have settled into their x Medicare $$ for each patient.

          So while there is profit it won’t be anywhere near the profit of a hospital.

          • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            13 days ago

            Couldn’t a private nursing home charge whatever they want for room fees, recreation fees, meal fees etc? There are some very shitty nursing homes and some very fancy ones out there, and id bet the profit margins on the fancy ones are much higher.

            • shawn1122@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              12
              ·
              13 days ago

              A long term care bed at a nursing home costs anywhere between $5500 to $20000 monthly. There are many rich, retired people who would have their finances depleted in a few years with a cost that high.

              The average middle class individual would never be able to afford that so the fall back is usually medicaid.

            • zephorah@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              9
              ·
              13 days ago

              There are private pay. And there are Medicare pay. Depends. Any will charge for anything: private room, tv, etc. Meals are mandated by regulation.

              So yes, if they own private pay they could be wealthy. Which shows how shitty health insurance has become, if they can afford Luigi’s posh schooling and not afford their healthcare.

    • TWeaK@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      44
      ·
      13 days ago

      Apparently his mother was also being screwed around by UHC.

      • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        12 days ago

        This, also, just because he may have had good coverage to do the surgery, stuff like that can have lifelong consequences that can need routine, expensive, medical care, for years, if not the rest of your life. Even if they are getting care, their insurance, even “good” insurance, could have denied much better therapy, for the cheaper route, which will have a major negative impact.

        It is too early to be making up our minds about this arrest, this guy, etc. However, just because your parents have money, doesn’t mean you can escape the evils of the private healthcare system.

    • over_clox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      36
      ·
      edit-2
      13 days ago

      I saw a post earlier supposedly showing Luigi’s neck/upper back lower back X-rays after some sort of surgery to install support implants of some sort.

      https://lemmy.world/post/22966582

      Disclaimer: Just like most everyone else online, I can’t confirm or deny a damn thing.

      Edit: I stand corrected, that was his lower back.

    • VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      13 days ago

      This is what he left as a last message apparently…

      The Allopathic Complex and Its Consequences luigi mangione’s last words LM Dec 09, 2024

      The second amendment means I am my own chief executive and commander in chief of my own military. I authorize my own act of self-defense in response to a hostile entity making war on me and my family. Nelson Mandela says no form of viooence can be excused. Camus says it’s all the same, whether you live or die or have a cup of coffee. MLK says violence never brings permanent peace. Gandhi says that non-violence is the mightiest power available to mankind. That’s who they tell you are heroes. That’s who our revolutionaries are. Yet is that not capitalistic? Non-violence keeps the system working at full speed ahead. What did it get us. Look in the mirror. They want us to be non-violent, so that they can grow fat off the blood they take from us. The only way out is through. Not all of us will make it. Each of us is our own chief executive. You have to decide what you will tolerate. In Gladiator 1 Maximus cuts into the military tattoo that identifies him as part of the roman legion. His friend asks “Is that the sign of your god?” As Maximus carves deeper into his own flesh, as his own blood drips down his skin, Maximus smiles and nods yes. The tattoo represents the emperor, who is god. The god emperor has made himself part of Maximus’s own flesh. The only way to destroy the emperor is to destroy himself. Maximus smiles through the pain because he knows it is worth it. These might be my last words. I don’t know when they will come for me. I will resist them at any cost. That’s why I smile through the pain.

      They diagnosed my mother with severe neuropathy when she was forty-one years old. She said it started ten years before that with burning sensations in her feet and occasional sharp stabbing pains. At first the pain would last a few moments, then fade to tingling, then numbness, then fade to nothing a few days later. The first time the pain came she ignored it. Then it came a couple times a year and she ignored it. Then every couple months. Then a couple times a month. Then a couple times a week. At that point by the time the tingling faded to numbness, the pain would start, and the discomfort was constant. At that point even going from the couch to the kitchen to make her own lunch became a major endeavor She started with ibuprofen, until the stomach aches and acid reflux made her switch to acetaminophen. Then the headaches and barely sleeping made her switch back to ibuprofen. The first doctor said it was psychosomatic. Nothing was wrong. She needed to relax, destress, sleep more. The second doctor said it was a compressed nerve in her spine. She needed back surgery. It would cost $180,000. Recovery would be six months minimum before walking again. Twelve months for full potential recovery, and she would never lift more than ten pounds of weight again. The third doctor performed a Nerve Conduction Study, Electromyography, MRI, and blood tests. Each test cost $800 to $1200. She hit the $6000 deductible of her UnitedHealthcare plan in October. Then the doctor went on vacation, and my mother wasn’t able to resume tests until January when her deductible reset. The tests showed severe neuropathy. The $180,000 surgery would have had no effect. They prescribed opioids for the pain. At first the pain relief was worth the price of constant mental fog and constipation. She didn’t tell me about that until later. All I remember is we took a trip for the first time in years, when she drove me to Monterey to go to the aquarium. I saw an otter in real life, swimming on its back. We left at 7am and listened to Green Day on the four-hour car ride. Over time, the opioids stopped working. They made her MORE sensitive to pain, and she felt withdrawal symptoms after just two or three hours. Then gabapentin. By now the pain was so bad she couldn’t exercise, which compounded the weight gain from the slowed metabolic rate and hormonal shifts. And it barely helped the pain, and made her so fatigued she would go an entire day without getting out of bed. Then Corticosteroids. Which didn’t even work. The pain was so bad I would hear my mother wake up in the night screaming in pain. I would run into her room, asking if she’s OK. Eventually I stopped getting up. She’d yell out anguished shrieks of wordless pain or the word “fuck” stretched and distended to its limits. I’d turn over and go back to sleep. All of this while they bled us dry with follow-up appointment after follow-up appointment, specialist consultations, and more imagine scans. Each appointment was promised to be fully covered, until the insurance claims were delayed and denied. Allopathic medicine did nothing to help my mother’s suffering. Yet it is the foundation of our entire society. My mother told me that on a good day the nerve pain was like her legs were immersed in ice water. On a bad day it felt like her legs were clamped in a machine shop vice, screwed down to where the cranks stopped turning, then crushed further until her ankle bones sprintered and cracked to accommodate the tightening clamp. She had more bad days than good. My mother crawled to the bathroom on her hands and knees. I slept in the living room to create more distance from her cries in the night. I still woke up, and still went back to sleep. Back then I thought there was nothing I could do.

      The high copays made consistent treatment impossible. New treatments were denied as “not medically necessary.” Old treatments didn’t work, and still put us out for thousands of dollars. UnitedHealthcare limited specialist consultations to twice a year. Then they refused to cover advanced imaging, which the specialists required for an appointment. Prior authorizations took weeks, then months. UnitedHealthcare constantly changed their claim filing procedure. They said my mother’s doctor needed to fax his notes. Then UnitedHealthcare said they did not save faxed patient correspondence, and required a hardcopy of the doctor’s typed notes to be mailed. Then they said they never received the notes. They were unable to approve the claim until they had received and filed the notes. They promised coverage, and broke their word to my mother. With every delay, my anger surged. With every denial, I wanted to throw the doctor through the glass wall of their hospital waiting room. But it wasn’t them. It wasn’t the doctors, the receptionists, administrators, pharmacists, imaging technicians, or anyone we ever met. It was UnitedHealthcare.

      People are dying. Evil has become institutionalized. Corporations make billions of dollars off the pain, suffering, death, and anguished cries in the night of millions of Americans. We entered into an agreement for healthcare with a legally binding contract that promised care commensurate with our insurance payments and medical needs. Then UnitedHealthcare changes the rules to suit their own profits. They think they make the rules, and think that because it’s legal that no one can punish them. They think there’s no one out there who will stop them.

      Now my own chronic back pain wakes me in the night, screaming in pain. I sought out another type of healing that showed me the real antidote to what ails us. I bide my time, saving the last of my strength to strike my final blows. All extractors must be forced to swallow the bitter pain they deal out to millions.

      As our own chief executives, it’s our obligation to make our own lives better. First and foremost, we must seek to improve our own circumstances and defend ourselves. As we do so, our actions have ripple effects that can improve the lives of others. Rules exist between two individuals, in a network that covers the entire earth. Some of these rules are written down. Some of these rules emerge from natural respect between two individuals. Some of these rules are defined in physical laws, like the properties of gravity, magnetism or the potential energy stored in the chemical bonds of potassium nitrate. No single document better encapsulates the belief that all people are equal in fundamental worth and moral status and the frameworks for fostering collective well-being than the US constitution. Writing a rule down makes it into a law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. Law means nothing. What does matter is following the guidance of our own logic and what we learn from those before us to maximize our own well-being, which will then maximize the well-being of our loved ones and community. That’s where UnitedHealthcare went wrong. They violated their contract with my mother, with me, and tens of millions of other Americans. This threat to my own health, my family’s health, and the health of our country’s people requires me to respond with an act of war. END

      • aislopmukbang@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        35
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        13 days ago

        Can people stop spreading this without verifying the source?

        I am skeptical given we have samples of his writing and that and that this has been circulated as his manifesto. Authorities have stated the manifesto is 262 words, handwritten (likely not copied digitally), and we have a quote from it stating he was working alone. This is in the area of 1500 words, reads like crap, does not include the quote, and does not account for the means of his family.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    62
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 days ago

    ITT: some really healthy skepticism over some of the “evidence” allegedly written by the shooter. I’m kinda impressed. Some other lemmy communities are leaning harder in to conspiracy ideas (planted evidence or whatever), but quite a few of the comments here are taking the time to analyze the info.

    • oatscoop@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      12 days ago

      Base on what I’ve read about this kid: I probably wouldn’t like him as a person. I probably wouldn’t agree with a lot of the things he believes, and I’d probably vehemently oppose a lot of it. I don’t think he’s a genius – in fact I think he’s probably a similar to the edgy, dumb kid I was at that age.

      Sometimes “good” people do bad things, and sometimes “bad” people do good things: real people aren’t one dimensional caricatures.

  • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    edit-2
    13 days ago

    Law Abiding Citizen 2 plotline. Honestly this event really remind me of that movie, all those killed is worthy of “ohh no…anyway”

  • Pandantic [they/them]@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    37
    ·
    12 days ago

    People are dying. Evil has become institutionalized. Corporations make billions of dollars off the pain, suffering, death, and anguished cries in the night of millions of Americans.

    Based.