Tragedy, Public Relations, and Social Protest
Like many of you, I’ve been deeply uncomfortable with much of the national discourse following the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson. Specifically the way in which so many Americans have used this news as a springboard for venting their anger at UnitedHealthcare, and the health insurance industry more broadly. No matter how egregious the behavior of Thomson’s company, it’s just felt wrong to me to tie these things together. Until now.
A few days ago, in a leaked video, Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group (and thus Thompson’s boss) was heard telling his company’s employees that they should ignore the wave of public criticism because it does not “reflect reality.” He then went on to describe his own perception of reality, which is that UnitedHealthcare supposedly puts consumers, members, and patients first. That their mission is to make the “experience for individuals" better and better over time. And that there are very few people who have done more to try to advance that mission than Brian Thompson. (My apologies for those of you who lost your lunch while reading the last few lines.)
It’s one thing for a corporate leader to spin and promote. That’s part of the job. It’s another thing to be so tone-deaf, so clueless about what the public thinks of your company, that promotion turns into a clumsy attempt at gaslighting. The comparison that came to mind for me was Anthony Hayward, the CEO of BP, who in the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill famously claimed that he was the real victim: “There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I’d like my life back.” ? Now, I know the parallel isn’t perfect. One situation was precipitated by a murder, and the other by corporate negligence. But both stories involved a CEO who badly misread just how angry the public was at his company.
The damage wreaked by UnitedHealthcare on patients, taxpayers, and healthcare professionals has been well chronicled elsewhere, and I don’t want to reproduce it here. (But if you’re looking for a couple examples, check out this story on diagnostic fraud or this one on claim rejection.)
Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about in this newsletter. If the accused murderer in this case, Luigi Mangione, had cared more about reforming the health insurance system than avenging his own personal grievances, this could have played out much differently. Social movements need rallying points, events that loom large in the public conscience and symbolise the the pent-up frustration and anger. At first glance the Thompson murder seems to be playing that role here, but the problem is that you can’t rally around it without out either turning Thompson into a sympathetic figure or Mangione into a folk hero, either of which would be stomach-turningly objectionable.
What we need right now is a Nan Goldin. If you’re not familiar with Goldin, she’s an artist and activist who lost a number of friends in the opioid epidemic. When she discovered that many of the world’s most prominent art museums (including some that had exhibited her own work) had named buildings and wings and exhibit areas after members of the Sackler family (the family behind Purdue Pharma) she was extremely upset. But she didn’t turn to murder to express that anger. She turned to art. She organised highly effective protests inside of art museums, including one at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Sackler Wing where volunteers dropped pill bottles labelled “Side Effect: Death” into a water feature.
领英推荐
Goldin’s efforts were remarkably successful. Keep in mind that charities such as art museums go to great lengths to cultivate relationships with wealthy donors, and they almost never go back on their agreements to name buildings after those donors. Yet within a fairly brief period of time, almost all of the world’s most famous art museums (and also London's Serpentine Galleries in Hyde Park, a personal favorite of mine) had taken down the Sackler name.?
So with Christmas coming up soon, here’s the wish list I’m sending Santa:
To schedule me to speak at your event, or to access the full Hippocratic Capitalism archive free of charge, see www.hippocraticcapitalism.com
Owner/Pharmacy Manager at West Cocoa Pharmacy and Compounding
2 个月Im not upset and im not upset about that
Data Warehouse Developer at CH Robinson
2 个月It's a shame he was murdered, but... That is a shameful but.
Pitch Ready Brand Innovations ? Debt Reduction Credit Card! ? L.A. Emmy Winner ? IMDB Credited ? Video Forensics Expert ? Former Parent Dementia Caregiver ? Social Media Ethicist ? News ? Politics ? Sports ? Commentary
2 个月The worst part of the situation was the lack of creativity by the shoot in the back murderer, who then shot the victim several more times while the victim lay on the ground. A bullwhip, with a verbal condemnation before each crack of the whip, done face to face, before escaping, would have been more effective at delivering a message, and his jail sentence would probably have been just a few years. Incredibly, the murderer is going to go insane in jail within a short period of time, and most likely kill himself, or create a confrontation that results in his death. What was the point?
Co-Owner at Bench Press Publishing
2 个月Violence is never a solution, but rather an indication that a situation has reached a critical tipping point. Corporations have been tone deaf and oblivious to the concerns of their customers as they chase ever higher profits for shareholders. Unfortunately the anger and frustration has been building for years and someone has lost their life because of it. Something needs to change, both in terms of how companies treat their customers, and in how people respond to bad situations. Violence solves nothing and only creates more tension and frustration.