- In a shocking term events that has rocked the healthcare community, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was tragically shot to death in New York City on December 6th. In this episode, we talk about the tragic event, the public's response and what this really means for the healthcare in United States. Let's get started. Welcome back everybody to the Building and Lifeowing Pathways podcast. Thanks so much for stopping by, I really appreciate it. For those of you who don't know me yet, my name is Jordan Renneke, and I'm a dual board certified physician in family and sports medicine. And the goal of this podcast, keep you active and healthy for life through actionable evidence and more education. And today we're taking a little bit of a detour. You know, you might be thinking, building and life-long athletes, what does this have to do with anything? Well, this is something that's just been a huge news event in the community. You know, it's been everywhere in the news and it's a really big thing in terms of the healthcare community. Obviously I work in healthcare, and so for me, this is a big thing. And I just wanted to talk about it, kind of take my, a couple of minutes here to share my thoughts on this and my perspective on it. And overall, if you haven't heard about this, what happened? Well, first of all, Brian Thompson, he was the CEO of United Healthcare and he was shot to death on December 6th. And the gunman who's actually still at large at the time this podcast was recorded, waited for him for several minutes it sounds like, then shot him several times in New York City where he was for his company's investor meeting. And it appears that he was specifically targeted by this person because on the bullets, they were etched the words deny, defend and depose, and it's up for interpretation what those mean. But ultimately that kind of indicates it's pretty premeditated. And I just want to talk about what this was. You know, this really kind of struck a chord with me and you know, if this isn't your cup of tea in the podcast, that's okay, I understand that. But for me, this has just kind of put on my heart to do. And yeah, overall, it's just, it was really tragic. The reaction has kind of been two really vastly different opinions that I've seen online. And this is one of those moments where like social media sometimes just, it's not the best thing in the world. You know, I've kind of seen, I'm a LinkedIn community where I am more connected in with like the healthcare community. It's very somber, very somber. People are just very sad about this. Whereas if I kind of go on the internet at large or social communities at large, things like Reddit and X, not so much the vibe there, that's for sure. It's a little bit different. You know, what's been really unfortunate is I see posts about people pretty much saying how they're glad this happened and that he deserved this and that his corporation did this to millions of people as well. And I think it's a whole different thing. I think it's a lot more challenging than that, but overall it's just been, it's been a challenge and it's been a struggle to see that there's so many people in this country, you know, that are struggling and are hurt so mad to the point where they think this is a good thing. You know, I think if we step back and think about, you know, this guy was a husband, he was a father and he was killed in cold blood in the middle of the street. I mean, that's it. If you stop and like break it down in the components of what actually happened, I think pretty much no one's gonna say this is a good thing. But I understand where those sentiments are coming from. You know, obviously he's a big public figure and a big public company that's made a lot of money. And you know, there's numbers around how much money he's made, what he's done before, what he's done, one of those things. Like I just wanna step back and just be like, this is a human being, right? Like this is a human being and we should not be celebrating the death of a human being in my personal opinion. And you know, getting politics aside and corporate, you know, whereabouts and what they've done aside, I think, ultimately that's something that hit me the hardest was like this, you know, this could be someone I know, this could be someone who runs my hospital, this could be anything like that. And yeah, it's a sad thing to do that. And yeah, it's been challenging. And as a healthcare worker, I think maybe I'm hit by this so much is 'cause our job is to take care of people, right? This is what we do day in and day out, we take care of people. And I think the reason it hits us so deep in healthcare is 'cause we quite honestly could see ourselves in that position. And I'm not saying, you know, I'm a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company that does ethically questionable things on the regular. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying we've all been there in healthcare. We've pretty much, if you've worked in healthcare in the inpatient setting or outpatient setting, you've been in these situations where you sometimes wonder like, my gosh, like what's gonna happen? I mean, I have seen countless high rates patients in the hospital, right? If you're taking care of someone in the hospital, it's their worst day. They're feeling down, they're sick, you know, maybe they're scared, maybe they're on, you know, knocking on death's door. There's lots of things that are going on, lots of emotions. It's a very scary place to be. And I've seen lots of angry patients at the time in terms of treatment plans and all that stuff. And it's really challenging. And you're trying to do your best, right? You're trying to do what's best for them, but how that's interpreted by people can be different. And so, yeah, it's really challenging. I mean, I had, when I'm working inpatient, I've had, you know, patients leave AMA, which is against medical advice. We were saying, "Hey, like, I'm so worried about you. If you leave, I'm worried you're gonna die." I've had patients say, "It doesn't matter." They're screaming, you know, in the middle of the night, they're screaming at me, the nursing staff, you know, swinging, throwing punches at nursing staff. I mean, you're seeing a lot of stuff. And the sad thing is, is if you work in healthcare, like everyone has a story like that. It's not just like, "Oh, you know, it's a one-off tooth." I know everyone has a story about that. And once again, I'm not saying like, "Oh, we're all high and mighty. Look at me working in healthcare." That's not, we're not guilty. You know, we're not innocent in this necessarily. I'm not saying we're guilty or complicit in things, but we've all been exposed to that. And that's the thing I'm trying to say is like, this is something we've all seen. During residency, we had a lockdown one time 'cause someone was coming to the emergency department with a loaded gun. And so we had to lock down the whole hospital. So like, we've been there, you're there, it can be scary. And it's really, yeah, we've all been there. And that's like the biggest thing, when I heard this news for me, like this is just my perspective, right? And I'm not saying anyone's opinion, you know, this is America, you can have your opinion, you can do whatever you want, and I'm not here to change your opinion on anything, but I'm just kind of sharing my side of things from a healthcare perspective is like, we all could see ourselves in that situation. 'Cause all it takes is this one person who felt like they were slighted or mistreated or misdiagnosed or something to come back and find you and to shoot you. And that's unfortunately like something pretty much everyone in healthcare has thought about it sometime. Is like, oh my gosh, I hope this is okay. And you know, we have some security, but like ultimately if someone wants it to happen, it's gonna happen. And for me, like ultimately this is just like not a place to celebrate, you know, a man lost his life, like I mentioned before, father and husband and no, no matter what someone has done in America, I just don't think we stand for vigilante justice, right? You know, we use our justice system and I get that. When people say it's corrupt, so we gotta take things at our own hand. Like I just, I don't know, I just gotta ask like, well, if that's your opinion, then what's stopping someone from doing that to you, if you have a different opinion. That's the biggest thing for me, right? The logic follows that like, okay, I don't like what they do, so I will take, I will do this. Well, it's like, well, if someone doesn't like what you do, then they're allowed to do that. And 'cause if it's a subjective thing of what's right and wrong, and so it's, yeah, it's just a hard thing and why did this happen ultimately? Why was he murdered? You know, nobody knows for sure yet, right? They haven't found the person. But I think overall, the real reason I wanna talk about this is clearly this is stemming from somewhere in the community at large and the population at large is, you know, based on the reactions that I'm seeing, people are fed up with our insurance system. And I think that is so valid. That's the one thing I do wanna like validate is like, I understand being fed up with the insurance system 'cause it is awful. It is so broken. Our entire healthcare system is just so broken. You know, in America here, we love having choice, right? We like the newest things. We want care, we want the newest care, we want the best care, we want the fastest care and we want the choice to choose what we want. And so by doing those things, we've kind of created this insurance system where, you know, people, how do we get everything we want? Well, you commoditize it and you turn it into a business and that's ultimately what we've done. But it's very broken, right? Patients hate this, physicians hate it too. And that's the big thing, you know, patients are like, oh, I wonder how long it's gonna be. You know, physicians are also, will do something and you have no idea, no idea in terms of how much it's gonna cost a patient. Like that's the hardest part about this, you know, current system is like, you wanna do right by the patient and you don't wanna bankrupt them. That's like the number one goal. But like, it's such a hard game with insurance and the middlemen to figure out like, what, how much money does it actually cost to perform this healthcare? We don't know. And so I also wanna say like, doctors aren't just like, yeah, we love it too. Like, no, we don't like it as well. And I know patients hate it too. And ultimately I think it's time to make a change. We're kind of coming to a, you know, it seems like a boiling point. Like a big change is gonna happen here, I think, in the near future. And hopefully that's me being optimistic, but I think it's kind of time for a change. It's been very clear identified that what we're doing is not working, right? That, you know, insurance has become this thing that it ties you to your job. It determines, you know, it's the number one cause, medical debt's the number one cause of bankruptcy in America. And it's just, yeah, there's a lot going on and through there, but you know, we need to figure out a way like, how can we make this change? What can we do? Well, I think like removing a lot of the middlemen might be helpful in terms of, so we can understand how much healthcare we're receiving is gonna cost. And essentially this is gonna have to happen through like sweeping healthcare reforms. I don't know what that entails. I'm not someone who's studied this in depth. Obviously I'm just a doctor. I'm just doing stuff and trying to help patients. And so I don't have the big brain to figure out what we're doing, but clearly what we're doing is not working. And you know, there's been some cool alternative options, some innovative things like direct primary care. I don't know if you've ever heard about that, but essentially what that is, is you work directly with a doctor. They don't have insurance. So obviously that can be challenging for some people, but you pay a pretty nominal fee. You know, I've seen anywhere from like 50 to like $150 a month, to essentially have access to your primary care doctor with no insurance. And they can go straight to them. You can talk with them, you can get care. You don't have to worry about insurance at all. You know, medications can be greatly reduced in terms of like a couple of dollars a month for your monthly medications potentially. Labs can be cheap as well. So there's the cost of healthcare is arbitrarily high because of the system we have necessarily. And when you remove that system, you might be able to deliver it in a totally different way. But that's, yeah. I don't know if that's the option for everything, but it just got me thinking of like, how can, what can we do, right? What can I do? What can I do as a physician, you know, help change the system? And is maybe the answer is to get out of the system and to start creating it in the way we want to do it and do our own thing. And this is ultimately what I want to do. Like, I just want to give you options and empower you. And like, for the reason I do this podcast, and this is why ultimately this triggered my mind, is that, you know, this has happened and this is scary. And the insurance world is scary and medicine is scary. 'Cause yeah, it's just a lot going on in America. But like, my goal for you in this podcast is to have you use insurance as little as possible. I want you to take your own health into your own hands. And I want you to bet on yourself. I think that's the best play for health. Can bad things happen that are out of control? Absolutely. You can get in a car accident, you can get cancer, you can get autoimmune condition. Like things that are out of control can happen. And I get that. I totally get that. But, but the least amount of time we have to interact with the medical system is probably gonna be better for you. Now I'm not saying put your head in the sand and be like, I have no worries. Like my cholesterol is out of control. I have diabetes. My blood pressure is back. I'll just forget about it, don't go to the doctor. No, that's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying, hey, if you lock in those things I talk about all the time, right? The necessary nine. If we lock those things in, then the amount of healthcare you will need will probably be significantly less than most people. And we have to interact less with things. And that's ultimately the goal, right? That's why I do this podcast is to help you stay healthy and active for life. And you know, the healthcare system is part of how we get healthcare, right? It's how we deliver care to you. So if we can bypass that as much as possible by just taking your own hands, that's ultimately what I want. But I know this is a not a normal one for me, but this is timely and yeah, it just really hit on my heart. And yeah, I've been just been praying for the people involved in this and it's just been a tough situation. And for me, yeah, it just hit me personally. Knowing that I've had times like this where I've worried like, hey, will someone come in and do something even earlier as a bystander. You've heard stories of that, right? People going to outpatient clinics and coming back and shooting a doctor. And so, you know, this is a CEO, but could easily have been insert anybody in healthcare 'cause it could happen to any of us which is the kind of sombering thing. So, but if you did listen to this though, I appreciate you. Life is still good. I'm not trying to bring you down by any means. I'm doing all right. So don't worry about that. But yeah, I just wanted to talk about it. I think every once in a while deserve to talk about some hard things. And so, but if you did listen all the way through, I appreciate you. Thanks so much. And if you found this helpful, you know, if you could leave a review or share with a friend who may think may enjoy the wall, that would mean a lot to me. But if you want to stay up for up to date with the latest news as well, you can sign up for a newsletter. But overall, this is it. So get off your phone, get outside, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in. Disclaimer, this podcast is for entertainment, education, and informational purposes only. The topics discussed should not solely be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition. The information presented here was created with an evidence-based approach, but please keep in mind that science is always changing. And at the time of listening to this, there may be some new data that makes this information incomplete or inaccurate. Always seek the advice of your personal physician or qualified healthcare provider for questions regarding any medical condition.
