The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York last week unleashed an unexpected reaction: There were many who expressed no sympathy for the 50-year-old father of two while hailing the accused shooter, identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, as a hero striking a blow against a system that piles up enormous profits at the expense of those who are desperately ill.

My niece-in-law was having none of that sentiment, though. She has worked for UnitedHealthcare for the past six years, yet given the opportunity she would vote for a law that would end her career.

She believes as much in a single payer healthcare system as any activist you’ll ever run across.

“This has been a hard, horrible day,” she wrote in a Facebook post the day of the shooting. “(Thompson) was in my leadership. I am keeping his family and colleagues in my prayers…Please refrain from any commentary on the business I work in. There is a time and a place for everything. This is neither for that discussion.”

There are two things worth noting as we consider the reaction Thompson’s murder created.

First, there is no opinion so vile or vulgar that it cannot be found on social media these days.

Second, I doubt many of the comments were directed personally at Thompson, who wasn’t exactly a household name and, as far as can be determined, did not create the healthcare crisis – and it is a crisis – that currently exists. Rather, Thompson is a symbol of the pitieless and predatory nature of our current healthcare system.

Data compiled by the finance website “Balancing Everything” shows that medical debt accounts for two-thirds of U.S. bankruptcies Each year, 530,000 Americans file for bankruptcy because they can’t pay for the healthcare they have received. More than half of Americans believe they wouldn’t be able to deal with the costs of a major health issue.

The U.S. has the highest healthcare costs but only the 35th best healthcare system in the world. Healthcare spending represented 18.3% of the U.S. economy in 2021, with $4.3 trillion in revenue.

It is nothing short of insanity.

According to polling from the Pew Research Center, 63% of Americans favor a government or public/private healthcare system, yet there seems to be little real movement in that direction.

Any discussion of a single payer (often called Medicare of All) is still rigidly opposed by Republicans – 66% say the current system should continue or that the government should have no involvement in healthcare.

Republicans revile single payer healthcare as socialism and an attack on our capitalist economic system.

Socialism has become a pejorative and frightening term, although it wasn’t always thought of in that sense.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, socialism was quite mainstream. Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs received almost a million votes (6% of the popular vote) in the 1912 Presidential election. Socialism lost support in this country not because it had bad ideas, but because it became too closely, often unfairly, associated with Communism during the Red Scare era of the 1950s.

Only then did economic philosophy become so rigidly associated with what it meant to be an American.

What is happening in healthcare now goes far beyond economic philosophy.

But if politicians really want to reduce this issue to capitalism vs. socialism, fine. I’m for the type of system that will prevent almost 1,500 Americans from going bankrupt each day because of medical debt. Which do you prefer?

I doubt there is a single one of those 530,000 Americans who have been forced into bankruptcy this year because of medical debt who would not gladly embrace socialism now. Tomorrow, you might become one of those converts.

Capitalism has the ability to prevent this tragic situation. Socialism guarantees it will be prevented. Conservatives would be wise not to force the people to choose.

A single payer healthcare system is not the death of capitalism just because conservatives stubbornly and wrongly insist it is.

As John Steinbeck observed during an earlier time of crisis, “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

I don’t believe many Americans hate Brian Thompson, but many Americans do hate what he represents.

The reaction to his murder suggests we are closer to that harvest than we think.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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