Steelmanning Arguments Against the “Wacking” of a Health Insurance CEO

Why violence doesn’t solve anything

At first, Luigi Mangione’s story seemed to resemble Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, or a Paul Schrader film. Even if you strongly oppose political violence (like I do), the human interest aspect of the case was undeniable—still is, arguably. Now, it’s a Zack Snyder superhero film, increasingly untethered from reality, with Eric Adams and others wasting taxpayer money on a pointless spectacle that will only fuel Mangione’s lionization:

So yeah…the feds probably didn’t have to do this. The social media attention for this perp walk outshined that of the new Superman trailer—here’s an eerily similar set photo, featuring David Corenswet in costume as Superman:

The best statements on the Mangione phenomenon have unequivocally condemned his actions while offering a reasonable explanation for the surprising sympathy he’s received. No, the American healthcare industry is not fine, actually, and Brian Thompson was probably a really bad CEO in his time—the use of an AI model with an alleged 90% error rate to deny insurance claims is nothing short of horrifying. But a “husband and father of two,” as many politicians have put it, did not deserve to die. Even if Thompson had no loved ones, he wouldn’t have deserved to die. Even if he’d killed people directly rather than indirectly through claim denials, he still wouldn’t have deserved to die. I support neither judicial nor extrajudicial execution, and moreover, Mangione simply deserves to be imprisoned. The left’s pie-in-the-sky fantasies of jury nullification will never happen, because regular people thankfully can’t bring themselves to let a murderer off the hook for any reason. Sympathizers should probably focus instead on the spurious terrorism (state) and stalking (federal) charges Mangione’s received. (Note that Mangione is innocent of murder until proven guilty, although it’s hard to imagine why he wouldn’t be given the available evidence.)

The worst statements on the Mangione phenomenon have offered no solutions to the ills of the American healthcare system, or even engaged in denialism. In the wake of Brian Thompson’s death, many apologists for the status quo have directed folks to a Random Critical Analysis blog post titled "Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong (a primer).” But the writeup’s anonymous author mistakes the forest for the trees. For one, their thesis is essentially a tautology: “American pay more for healthcare, because Americans spend more on healthcare.” The main problem at hand, however, is not the cost of healthcare for the average American. Rather, the extremes are huge areas of concern—when those that live in poverty lack access to consistent quality healthcare, or when individuals are denied necessary care by insurers. This is what Mangione’s sympathizers are concerned about: the lack of a public option or single-payer. And regardless of which you prefer (I’m partial to the former), there’s simply no excuse for not having either in a developed country. Healthcare reform was also an afterthought in the last election, and that’s a travesty of politics.

If You Want a Revolution, Remember…

Let’s momentarily adopt the worldview of people who think a violent revolution against the powers that be is “a good idea” (I’ll say once again that I repudiate this), and evaluate feasibility as opposed to morality. A silver spoon 26-year-old with all the blessings in the world may have been capable of committing this act, but who's going to join him in the revolution? No one with a job, I think. The whole reason he could meticulously plan the killing was because he was an unemployed trustafarian with a safety net the size of 150+ other people’s; TMZ, a rag, said his net worth was around $6 million, but even The New York Times is reporting he was…well, rich.

No one with a job they can afford to lose can endorse Mangione’s act publicly. By publicly, I don't mean on the internet, I mean in real life, mugging in a mugshot just like Mangione did. Remember, this was someone arrogant and headstrong enough to bring about the downfall of his entire family—the esteemed Mangione name is tainted now, and I don't think most working or middle-class people would be capable of liberating themselves from impression management and "face," assuming they even agreed with the revolutionaries’ worldview. Regular people have kids and spouses and parents to feed, and so on and so forth.

So regardless of any moral qualms, which we could spend another article discussing in great detail, this just isn’t practical. Most people don’t want to be part of a revolution.

Luigi Mangione’s Menu of Options

It gets even more difficult to understand why Mangione did what he did when you take a look at the menu of options he had. Remember, he had plenty of money, smarts, education, and connections—practically everything one needs to excel in any area of interest. One of Mangione’s favorite thinkers was Gurwinder Bhogal, a popular Substacker, who communicated with Mangione on several occasions and mentioned to the press that he had an interest in effective altruism.

It’s tragic, then, that Mangione resorted to killing a CEO if he was aware of EA. Effective altruism usually works on a global scale, identifying the Malaria Consortium and the Against Malaria Foundation as saving the most lives per donated dollar. But if he wanted to save American lives without dealing with the epistemic uncertainty of killing a CEO (again, irrespective of other moral considerations, of which there are many), donating part of his net worth to St. Jude's Children's Hospital (just 5 cents per donated dollar for administrative costs!) would’ve allowed him to do it. He’d even zero in on that most deserving population, children with life-threatening cancer. And yet we do not yet have evidence he did that, or anything remotely similar to that. Even a crook like Sam Bankman-Fried, who likely would’ve never become a billionaire and committed fraud had EA not dictated he “earn to give,” had a better grasp of the ideologies he subscribed to than Mangione did.

Here was someone who came from a family that profited off a nursing home empire detested by health inspectors, with innumerable privileges at his disposal, who never attempted large-scale reform through mainstream channels. To our knowledge, he’d never written an op-ed, attended a protest, or worked in any position that might address healthcare inequity.

Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs venture, a public benefit corporation that created an economical direct-to-consumer model for pharmaceuticals, is a great example of entrepreneurial ingenuity eliminating the need for middlemen and insurance bureaucracy. Someone with Mangione's background and apparent passion for healthcare reform could’ve attempted something very similar. Instead, he chose murder. Not as a last resort after exhausting other options, but as a first choice despite having numerous alternatives available. Why did he do that? We’ll have to look to the future for more explanations, but this reality takes a wrecking ball to the folk hero narratives that have emerged.

The Mangione case is still a virtually unprecedented true crime tale, with more intriguing psychological, political, and philosophical overtones than practically any other I can think of. But let’s get real: this is not a martyr.