A group of investors sued UnitedHealthcare Group on Wednesday, accusing the company of misleading them after the killing of its CEO, Brian Thompson.

The class action lawsuit — filed in the Southern District of New York — accuses the health insurance company of not initially adjusting their 2025 net earning outlook to factor in how Thompson’s killing would affect their operations.

The group, which is seeking unspecified damages, argued that the public backlash prevented the company from pursuing “the aggressive, anti-consumer tactics that it would need to achieve” its earnings goals.

  • Phoenixz
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    31 month ago

    Wow, they really are saying the quiet part out loud without even a hint of understanding what they just said.

    Amazing, if it wasn’t so vomit disgusting

    • Geetnerd
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      121 month ago

      Well, they’ve normalized and made overt cruelty a virtue over the last 40 years through mass media.

  • Rentlar
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    951 month ago

    The fact that people can’t tell whether it was a group of activist investors highlighting the unethical behaviour of UHC, or if it was a morally depraved shareholder body that actually wants the company to be more anti-consumer, is absolutely insane.

    Is this the Late stage capitalism version of the Turing test?

    • Nougat
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      351 month ago

      Is this the Late stage capitalism version of the Turing test?

      Nailed it.

    • Geetnerd
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      1 month ago

      I’m old. 53. I never gave too much thought to the whole capitalism vs communism vs socialism debate until my early 30’s.

      But at my age, it’s become blatantly, obscenely obvious that unregulated, laissez-faire, free market capitalism is evil. That “fiducial duty” to prioritize stranger’s money is more important than human lives.

      Putting investors above common, basic decency is abominable, and irredeemable.

      I don’t give two fucks about shareholders, or their “investment.”

      • @MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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        671 month ago

        I’m just a hair younger than you. I’ve never for a moment entertained communism. I’ve always been a believer in capitalism, but with the regulations and constraints we had in maybe the 70’s (not going to imply there was a golden age of capitalism, but if there was it was before god damned Reagan). And if we can’t regulate capitalism, I’m all for strangling it. Fuck everything about this dystopian bullshit. No one gives one single shit what happens beyond the next quarter. No one is in business to build things or solve problems—they are here to make fucking money.

        Fuck. Unfettered. Capitalism.

        • @takeda@lemm.ee
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          281 month ago

          The reason why communism is not great is because to implement it (at least now) it leads to authoritarianism.

          IMO social democracy (which is regulated capitalism) which we see in Scandinavian countries looks the best right now.

      • @RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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        191 month ago

        Adam Smith was the biggest proponent of free markets.

        However in “The Wealth of Nations” he makes clear that if all participants cannot choose NOT to participate, it is NOT a free market and should be regulated.

        • @tedd_deireadh@lemmy.world
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          21 month ago

          So, how did he envision his ideal free market in which participants could choose not to participate? How was that supposed to work?

          • Like at my local store. I can choose to buy a bottle of water or I can get water somewhere else.

            With healthcare or utilities, for example, you don’t have an option so they cannot be considered free markets and should be regulated.

            • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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              71 month ago

              Clean drinking water, of course, is not something you can choose to be without, so maybe not the best example. Also, fuck Nestle.

          • @givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            101 month ago

            He also died 235 years ago…

            Like, if you asked any of those “great thinkers” if people 200+ years in the future should still be relying on their opinion and not a single one would agree.

            Humanity’s greatest strength is exchanging ideas and building on them, the rate we do so has skyrocketed since then. So much shit has changed that what people said back then should really only be useful on trivia night or when learning history.

            If it’s still applicable it means we stagnated, and that’s a bad sign for society.

            We should understand the framework and what came before, but under no circumstances looking to them for literal guidance from the ancients type shit. We live in drastically different worlds.

            • Geetnerd
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              61 month ago

              Oh, I’m in agreement.

              It’s the reason “The Founders” of the Great American Experiment included the device of Amendments to The Constiution. They knew things would change, and need to be “amended.” Most of them were also rich land owning white men who thought only they deserved to make any important decisions, and a lot of them were slave owners.

              I’m in no way fanboying anyone.

              • @givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                41 month ago

                Yeah, didn’t mean it personally, just in general it gets old debating centuries old economic plans like we can’t figure out what works.

                But amendments was the compromise, lots of the framers wanted to start from scratch every 20 years with a large vote on what makes it in the new.

      • CherryLips
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        41 month ago

        You arnt old. And I also feel the same as you. I am becoming anti consumer. I hope as a last chance Gen x get to go out in a blaze. I am becoming more activist. We have been fighters all our lives. Time to use it for good.

        • Geetnerd
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          21 month ago

          I see you’re not familiar with The Rules of Acquisition…

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvFYBkesqGU

          Funny unverified rumor, but it’s believed that the GOP thought that The Ferengi were a mockery of Milton Friedman, and they stated the fictional race was “antisemitic.”

          I have no problem believing it.

      • @tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        151 month ago

        It’s as simple as this, my mom explained it to me at 8 years old: “A lot of parents give their kids money for good grades or doing chores, but that teaches them to do things for the money and not because it’s the right thing to do.”

        It’s a habit, like a drug addiction, your brain is rewarded by profit and molds itself around that, altering your view of right and wrong.

        • Geetnerd
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          61 month ago

          Agreed.

          Rapacious greed is a mental illness that is instilled in childhood.

  • @beejboytyson@lemmy.world
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    71 month ago

    Wow, just when I thought these ppl couldn’t get more shitty they sue the company for not predicting how much money they would lose from a violent murder of thier employee. Brian this is what you died for, hope you see bud how little people cared about you.

  • @FirstCircle@lemmy.ml
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    131 month ago

    This (the suit) is a glorious bit of trolling, meant to keep UHC’s evildoing high up there in people’s newsfeeds. It provides clickbait headlines and tasty bits of content (much more to come I hope) like “aggressive, anti-consumer tactics” that will keep the sharing machine running and the victim complaints in full view.

    This is brilliant, I wish I’d thought of the tactic. The class members have to own at least a share of stock while still being able to sleep at night. Where do you find such martyrs?

    • @meyotch@slrpnk.net
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      91 month ago

      There’s got to be a name for this kind of method. I had a similar insight. I want to run for a public office as an independent and have one of my initial campaign pushes be about how I am the first openly gay person to run for that office.

      The person currently holding that office is openly gay. However, he is very comfortable and no longer makes a point about it anymore now that he has a secure seat. I have no interest in holding that office. I just want to make him talk about it.

      I as a working class, gay man. I am quite disgusted with the Palm Springs homosexuals who hide behind their wealth now that we have achieved a modicum of social acceptance. The fight is far from over for people who have to work for a living, so I thought about this as a way to just get people talking again about the needs of people who don’t fit the standard molds.

      It’s not quite rat fucking but more the political equivalent of shit posting.

  • @dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I kind of understand where they are coming from, though. They are accusing the company of not adjusting their projected earnings in the face of a clear negative outlook.

    EDIT: The company delivered earnings projections before his death, and then after it they publicly stated their earnings projections would not change. They are accused of not disclosing clear risks to earnings by saying nothing will change.

  • @apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world
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    581 month ago

    Prevented them from pursuing anti-consumer tactics? Seriously bleak. I wouldn’t expect anything less from shareholders in a health care insurance company in the United States.

  • @WatDabney@sopuli.xyz
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    1041 month ago

    In a world gone Onion, that’s easily the most Onion’ish true story I’ve seen. So far…

    They’re literally suing the company for not being evil enough.

    That’s so insane that merely taking part in that suit should be seen as grounds for a psych hold.

  • @AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    So the shareholders are declaring that Thompson’s killing successfully disrupted the company’s “aggressive anti-consumer tactics”.

    It’s almost like they’re trying to encourage more of the same.

  • @audaxdreik@pawb.social
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    41 month ago

    Reposting top level to address “false flag” claims:

    While there’s certainly nothing conclusive there, I’m not really sure I see the point? When the murder first happened, there were already all sorts of talking points about UHC having twice the national average of denials while pocketing billions in wealth and using AI.

    When you ask me who is angrier and has more legal capacity to take this kind of action, I’m gonna go with the shareholders. The American people should be the angrier party, but it’s a lot more abstract for them. Shareholders lost MILLIONS. Because, as the filing says, they didn’t make appropriate adjustments to reflect the reality of that situation.

    Biggest point of contention here is the language used and it’s ugly, but it’s direct. People can make false flag claims without evidence until the cows come home, but I don’t smell it here.

    • @entwine413@lemm.ee
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      61 month ago

      This could definitely be a lawsuit to draw public attention to UHC’s anti-consumer practices. It’s really all that makes sense.

    • @protist@mander.xyz
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      81 month ago

      The language used in the lawsuit makes it sound like these shareholders are trying to highlight that UHC has to engage in anti-coksumer practices in order to reach their profit goals. We don’t know anything about who they are. Doesn’t take much to be a shareholder

    • Geetnerd
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      11 month ago

      You can thank Milton Friedman. The MBA patron saint.