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Comment by tjpnz | Hacker News Reader

I'm guessing the announcement was just unfortunate timing. Normally the industry wouldn't be facing a reckoning and it would slip under the radar. In other words I fully expect them to try this again.

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Even though professional groups representing anesthesiologists fought back against this new policy on limiting coverage of anesthesia, I bet it was the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO that caused them to back off. The timing is too convenient. But they’ll try this again once the public stops paying attention. It’s what they do. All these health insurance companies don’t make money by providing more value to customers. They make more money by doing less for them. It’s a perverse incentive.

Agreed. But I also thinks this sets a bit of a bad precedent. Apparently all you have to do to get a hated industry to back off is murder one of their leaders.

Kind of a no win situation they put themselves into.

"It's just the free market correcting itself" /s

Apparently, the invisible hand of the free market is holding a gun.

Sounds like a very American approach. ;)

Death panels go retail.

When there is no justice for the people who have to suffer and/or die due to the callousness of management at health insurance companies like this, then I don't see another option. Suing doesn't do any good. The government can't or won't do anything. Nobody cares if you're denied life-saving care, or if it's delayed until it's too late. Until now, there were never any consequences. They have a captive market where all the competitors behave the same way at the expense of people who need health care.

I suspect the long term effect will be determined by if the guy gets caught. If he doesn't get caught, people will think, "hey, you can get away with this," and it will happen more. If does get caught, people will think, "these people are greedy and unjust, but I don't want to die or spend the rest of my life in jail and deprive my family, I'll just deal with it."

Another option is gets caught but walks free due to jury nullification.

I think most people cheering him on expect him to get caught and probably the shooter expects that himself. Having a long term effect will be if his reasons for doing it inspires law makers to enact change. Or if he inspires 3 or 4 other people who are successful in gunning down CEOs of other exploitative industries, even after upping security.

If he is killed and/or we never learn a motive, he'll just be forgotten under a pile of online and media speculation. Hopefully his plan anticipated some kind of dead man's release of his motive.

Don’t worry, the most powerful people are still way, way more positively incentivized to do the wrong thing

Isn't it a bit early to say this? The motive is not yet known.

Based on what was written on the casings of the bullets, I think we all have a pretty strong guess.

Oh! I hadn't heard about this.

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