NEW YORK, Dec 11 (Reuters) - In the days since Luigi Mangione was charged with murder for gunning down a top health insurance executive, more than a thousand donations have poured into an online fundraiser for his legal defense, with messages supporting him and even celebrating the crime.
…
Most of the messages on the crowd-sourced fundraising site GiveSendGo reflect a deep frustration shared by many Americans over the U.S. healthcare system - where some treatments and reimbursements can be denied to patients depending on their insurance coverage - as well as broader anger over rising income inequality and soaring executive pay.
It’s disappointing to see even Reuters dancing around the topic of the fully justified and wildly popular outrage against corporate America. They’re trying so hard to whitewash this and paint support for Luigi as “disturbing” while painstakingly tip-toeing around the actual issues. I expected better of Reuters than contributing to the bootlicking editorializing that’s going on in this article.
If he gets tried and comes out not guilty. There is going to be the biggest spontaneous parties ever.
Did they provide a donation link?
Mr Rodriguez, this guy just provided the justice that the government denied to thousands of people. He did the job that you failed to do.
What a pile of shit this article is. Reuters, just take the mask off already.
The crime he is accused of has been broadly condemned, but the Ivy League educated, photogenic 26-year-old has become an unsettling mixture of folk hero, celebrity, and online crush in certain circles. His support has only seemingly intensified since his arrest on Monday.
Unsettling, is it? Is that your detatched journalistic opinion? Fuck.
“They’ve made him a martyr for all the troubles people have had with their own insurance companies,” said Rodriguez, now an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “I mean, who hasn’t had run-ins with their insurance? But he’s a stone-cold killer.”
Damn, THE John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City?! Going all out for the “I mean, who hasn’t had their mother’s cancer treatment denied” quote eh. Good call, Reuters.
“It’s hard to underestimate the anger and angst people have with their insurance companies,” said David Shapiro, a former FBI agent and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Spent more than ten minutes in the building did ya?
‘DEEPLY DISTURBING’
Support was by no means universal, however.
Several commentators on social media noted Mangione’s privileged background as a member of a prominent Baltimore, Maryland family, as compared to Thompson’s working class upbringing in rural Iowa . . .
Ahhh there’s that b0Th SiDeZ that makes the world go round. Well done Reuters, no one can fault this one! And that bit about the healthcare CEO being raised a hardscrabble farm boy with dreams of the big city is pure fucking gold you soulless corporate sleaze merchants.
“Our health system needs to be better … There’s a lot of things that should cause a lot of outrage,” Amazon Pharmacy Chief Medical Officer Vin Gupta said. “It’s also true that (the killing) should not have happened. There cannot be this false moral equivalence in our discourse.”
That’s what the article closes with. I bet it took AI at least a minute to fine-tune the “false moral equivalence” so all the poor libz who think he’s a folk hero can begin to second-guess themselves and start the collapse of this whole sordid phenomenon whereby people are no fucking shit justifiably beyond outraged that everyone and their mom is getting screwed by this bullshit profit factory Nixon dreamed up.
Great job Reuters, you really whacked all the moles on this one.
The crime he is accused of has been broadly condemned
…by the oligarchs and their puppets exclusively. Pretty big omission there.
As I mentioned, the article was, as the kids say, “shit”.
Indeed.
Great breakdown. Thank you
You say this, but they also pointed people to the fundraiser - so it’s a pretty helpful article, don’t you think?
No, because “the fundraiser” isn’t one I recognize and also there was discussion that funds seeming to reward murder would be banned - that sort of thing, both of which tell me the article didn’t much care what the fundraiser was, just that it was an anchor for the rest of the tripe to hang on.
Funding his defense counsel, funding ACLU or a non-profit in support, or directly to his Monero account or something - OK. But this doesn’t sound like it.
Where’s your Christmas spirit?
Several commentators on social media noted Mangione’s privileged background as a member of a prominent Baltimore, Maryland family, as compared to Thompson’s working class upbringing in rural Iowa . . .
That’s not the same as condemning him. Just saying.
Who cares what either of their backgrounds are. One preyed on people for profit, the other is fighting for social equity. It’s how they conducted themselves that matters, not the circumstances of their birth.
I mean, I read that as two class traitors, one of whom did the praxis to show which side he is on.
What is it doing then? (And, follow up question - why is it doing it)
Personally, virtually 100% of the chatter I’ve seen online is pro-Luigi. Rooting him on in his escape/evasion, hoping he doesn’t get caught, or outright praising his actions.
Thus, my point is if the sharpest anti-Luigi commentary the author can find is discussion of his background, that shows he’s pulling at straws to get a ‘both sides’ story when the reality is among rank and file people, there’s a strong near-universal sentiment that Thompson had it coming.
Indeed - sort of creating anti-Luigi commentary, isn’t it.
Coming damn close at least.
The US elected a convicted felon to the presidency and you’re shocked an alleged felon is somewhat popular? We are talking about a country that has become entirely obsessed with “hurting the right people”.
Yeah, I wonder what might might cause the American people to be inured to crime and violence. We see oligarchs making a mockery of the law almost constantly, not to even mention the ridiculous appeals to “rules based international order” abroad.
I am not surprised they are pouring in.
GIvesendgo legal fund for those who want to see.
I wish it didn’t need to be done on Givesendgo but I guess they’re the only ones allowing it to stay up.
For anyone not aware, from its wikipedia:
GiveSendGo is a Christian crowdfundingwebsite.[5] GiveSendGo has attracted controversy for allowing far-right extremists to fundraise, including neo-Nazis, white supremacists and hate groups.[15]
How do we know for sure the money will go to McShooty? I couldn’t find any guarantee on the funding page. I’m worried it’s yet another grift…
From the givesendgo page …
All proceeds will be sent directly to Luigi or, if he chooses to reject the funds, they will instead be donated to legal funds for other U.S political prisoners.
I read that as well, I just wish there was a better way to ensure the funds would go to him. We just have the word of whomever setup that fundraising page. I don’t know if I trust it.
The most fucked up thing is right below his page, all the people needing money for healthcare related costs. Cancers/surgeries/live saving treatments…the fact that to survive in the usa you have to hope strangers send money to you is totally fucked.
What’s really funny is that’s how socialised healthcare works. We all pool money together based on income and it goes into this neat little fund that ensures no person ever goes without healthcare.
Corporations like United Health can’t profit from this so they’ve been working and lobbying lawmakers in my country and others for decades to gut the public health and education sectors to cause more deaths and get a foothold for private care.
In my eyes this is a corporate act of war and should be condemned to the highest degree. Our forefathers died in trenches to prove our worth and ensure we could practice this social democracy. American terror organisations sow doubts in the minds of my people and poison the waters of meaningful progress.
There is calculable effect on the people of my country in housing, health and education because of these profiteering fucks. These predatory animals could disappear tomorrow and nobody would give a flying fuck.
Says it’s unpunished
I donated and I don’t even live in the states, I just support the cause. Looks like it’s gaining momentum, too.
Looks like that might have been fake.
It went down for an hour.
It feels dirty using a christian money raising site. Are we sure this is real?
No idea, but I’m willing to gamble £10 on it.
Good point. And, thanks for the international support.
Doesn’t work. Probably fake.
It went down for an hour, I think due to traffic.
The crime he is accused of has been broadly condemned
Uhh, no, it’s not.
Murder has been broadly condemned. In fact, one guy condemned the murder of health insurance customers so much that he murdered a CEO. In general, we want LESS murder.
They paid one man to go to California and condemn it and another man to go to florida and condemn it. See, broadly condemned.
Saying the crime was “broadly condemned” in the same article about the flood of money and support he’s received, with a large section of said article being about the praise given online, is an interesting way to frame things.
The crime he is accused of has
been broadly condemnedfound broad support crisscrossing social and political linesftf them
The crime he is accused of has been broadly condemned by the victims peers, the public however has remained supportive of his actions.
Shhhhh… they are trying to create a narrative! You can’t just go contradicting them like that!
“They’ve made him a martyr for all the troubles people have had with their own insurance companies,” said Rodriguez “I mean, who hasn’t had run-ins with their insurance? But he’s a stone-cold killer.”
Most of the developed world outside of America.
It happens to everyone, once a doctor prescribed a medicine off-label and my Krankenkasse (german non-profit health insurance) refused to cover all of it. I had to pay 10 euros out of my own pocket.The pharmacist was super apologetic about the whole thing. /s
As an American living in Germany I find it hilarious how Germans complain about the smallest cost of their prescriptions. I got some basic blood work done before my insurance kicked in and the doctor was going over the cost like I was going to flip my shit hearing it. I told him I was American and laughed. €25 for blood work and zero cost for just speaking to you? Sign me the fuck up. I paid $100 for a consultation about sinus infection that lasted 5 minutes at a general practice i Washington DC. You don’t scare me!
I take adhd medicine in Germany that I also took in the US. In the US, I had to pay $50 for a doctor’s appointment, ~$200 for a drug test to make sure I was taking it and only it, and then $220 for one month of the generic brand. Then, when I hit my deductible in about June, the drug test was free, my appointment was $30, and the medication was $50. For this privilege, I paid $13k/year in premiums. In Germany, I get insurance for about €140/month while working part time at a bakery, then all my required appointments are free, no drug test, and I get two months of the brand name medication for under €16.
I was making over $60k/year in the US, not living in a major city. I now earn a few euros more than minimum wage at a part time job in Germany. Things are significantly more affordable here.
Of course health care in Germany is magnitudes better than in the USA. But there are some weird exceptions to coverage. For example everything around teeth and some things regarding eye sight and allergies. Apparently not having my eyes and nose swollen shut all the time is a life style choice which costs me ~50 bucks a month. At least they think I should be able to breathe which only costs me ~5 bucks every 4 months (north of 300 without coverage).
Its still crazy that allergie treatment isn’t considered essential care. There were times my allergies were debilitating. The most sick I got in the last 6 months was spending a couple hours with a cat. I genuinely couldn’t work for days, and I was taking my allergy meds the whole time…
That’s because the costs are negotiated centrally, so healthcare is relatively cheap even if you have to pay for it. Some European countries are even having problems because some Americans found out that it’s often much cheaper to pay for a plane ticket, a nice hotel, and the treatment costs fully out of their own pocket in Europe than having the same treatment in the US even with insurance.
I have a friend who’s contemplating this. They can fly over as a couple and have a few weeks of vacation, get the operation and still have money left.
One of the most surreal experiences in my life was riding in an ambulance in Norway and having the EMT sheepishly explain that while the ambulance ride was free, the ER visit was going to come with a bill. He was equal parts embarrassed and indignant about it. The bill was the equivalent of $25.
I was talking to a friend of mine in Canada about this recently. He has some minor gripes, but nothing like what I have. I told them my recent ER visit approached $15k in charges and they were aghast. They couldn’t even comprehend it. Like, their brain just broke and shut off. It made no sense to them.
It shouldn’t make sense to us, either. We should have a similar reaction, but I think we’ve been slowly boiled so long that we don’t.
Time to take it back.
This whole thing has been excellent for countries with public healthcare systems under threat of the private sector trying to crack the armour. It sends a message to political careers, when the centre of the world’s capitalism clearly hates their current setup. It underscores to the most selfish of politicians that public support is more valuable than whatever form of “lobbying” deal a private company may bring to the table they don’t fundamentally belong at.
Tbh, it’s probably a really weird week to be Canadian. Here’s confirmation about the importance of socialized hc, but also a bunch of uncomfortable “jokes” from your very unstable and militarily powerful southern neighbor.
So how do we donate to something that isn’t a scam to get our money lol
Monero and cue the lawyer to its acceptance.
Cash is fine, we don’t need to support money laundering and financial scams
