Readers Write: Shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO, Trump’s Cabinet, Dia de los Muertos

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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The tragic and senseless apparent assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has brought into the spotlight a conversation about the shortfalls of the American health care insurance system (“ ‘Brazen’ attack kills UHC exec,” StarTribune.com, Dec. 5). It is sad that this conversation has emerged under these awful circumstances. The conversation should have been happening all along.

We as a nation are stuck in a mid-20th century system of ensuring widespread and equitable access to health care. The fact that universal single-payer health care advocates have to assert that health care is a human right, instead of that simply being assumed, is telling.

Most arguments against a health care for all system like the one currently being studied for Minnesota base their arguments on falsehoods. Health care insurance is not the same as actual health care. No one is advocating for a “national health care” system like they have in Britain. No one’s choice of care provider would be limited. Wait times for appointments would not go up. Quality of care would not go down. Costs would drop through a combination of reductions (mainly in prescription drug costs) from having a powerful negotiator, reduction of administrative costs and removal of the health insurance industry’s profits.

A universal single-payer health insurance system is a good deal for everyone and can bring our nation into the late 20th century, at least. Minnesota can have its own version of this if we want it; perhaps the new administration in Washington will also agree that this is the way to go.

Greg Laden, Plymouth

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First of all, I’d like to extend my condolences to the family of UnitedHealthcare CEO Thompson. I understand the impulse to figure out why this happened to him. If it’s determined that this was a targeted attack, then we might be able to give ourselves the false sense that we are safe. The truth is people die by gun violence every day in our country. It happens so frequently that most gun-related deaths do not make the front page of the newspaper.

If you are a CEO and you were able to hire security following the shooting to make you feel safer, good for you. That said, who is protecting the children? Guns are the leading cause of death for children and teens in our country. What are we doing to protect them?

A new legislative session begins next month in Minnesota. I urge our lawmakers to work together to address the problem of gun violence. While no single solution will eliminate the problem of gun violence, the more ways we approach this, the better. Don’t wait until you are personally impacted by gun violence to take action.

Leah Kondes, Minneapolis

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Before his tragic killing, I had never heard of Thompson. By all accounts he was what so many of us who work in the insurance industry are: a good person who was working to make an awful industry as good as it can be. The unfortunate truth for many sick and injured people is that “as good as it can be” is still pretty terrible. No one disputes that.

That fact, however, is not the fault of Thompson or any other highly paid executives at any insurance company. Where Evan Ramstad’s otherwise excellent column misses the mark is that the shockingly intense vitriol being directed toward a shooting victim for having the audacity to work in a role for the salary his company was willing to pay him is utterly misguided (”Ramstad: Murder of UnitedHealth exec incites anger — not at the killer, but at him and the company,” StarTribune.com, Dec. 6).

Congress has tried and failed over the years to create a better system. I know they have “concepts of a plan” to make things better this time, but I have my doubts that those concepts will do anything but create more profit for shareholders and executives at the expense of the health of everyday Americans. The fact that our current system can only be improved by changes to the existing health care laws that have so far only made things worse is more than worthy of guiding vitriol toward those who have created this mess and will continue to work against improving it.

Violence, though, is never the answer, and I hope the Thompson family is aware that there are plenty of us who feel brokenhearted by this and are mourning the loss of their husband and father along with them.

Adam Skoglund, Eden Prairie

Andy Brehm’s commentary about Donald Trump’s Cabinet and leader nominations (“Trump’s recess appointment scheme is reckless,” Strib Voices, Dec. 5) is spot-on. As a center-right conservative, I also feel we should heed the original guidance of Hamilton and Madison in the Federalist Papers about separation of powers and the checks and balances provided each branch of government. The Senate’s role in Cabinet appointments is to “advise and consent” on executive appointments — not rubber stamp them. The use of recess appointments to install the president-elect’s nominees is an end run that will diminish the process and reduce the effectiveness of the nominees. Let the Senate do its job.

Matthew L. Rowles, North Oaks

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Brehm did make a good point about recess appointments, but many of his statements are, at best, questionable. Trump did have a respectable electoral victory — larger than his own 2016 number, larger than Joe Biden’s 2020 number. But it was way short of Barack Obama’s 365 electoral votes in 2008. I do not recall Republicans agreeing that Obama had a mandate. The popular vote was not a landslide by any measure, either.

Then, the “Democrats’ past support of reckless tinkering with our legislative process …” Would that be like telling the president he can’t appoint a Supreme Court justice in an election year? Wait, that was a Republican who did that. Then, the same senator did an about-face and allowed a Republican president to push a justice through six weeks before an election. And Democrats treated Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh poorly? Apparently, if a woman accuses a man, the liar is always the woman. Many readers likely choked on their morning coffee when they read the description of Thomas and Kavanaugh as “good and decent public servants.” Certainly there are proud, traditional Republicans still around. But overlooking all of the mess that is Trump is a sad change from the Republicans of the past.

Kathleen Breen, Roseville

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As much as I agree with Brehm’s eventual conclusion that the incoming president’s appointments are reckless, I have to point out the inaccurate puffery of the first half of his commentary.

Trump’s electoral victory was as narrow as they come — they certainly didn’t get a landslide. Switch 15,000 votes in Wisconsin, 40,000 in Michigan and 68,000 in Pennsylvania and the last-minute candidacy of Kamala Harris prevails.

Biden’s failure to acknowledge his own decline gave Trump the office. The people around him served their own interests in their jobs, but not the country’s need for competent leadership.

Dave Porter, Minneapolis

In response to Ka Vang’s article about visiting Hmong New Year and the kids not being interested, I just want to stand in solidarity (“Vang: Courting rituals, a stuffed chicken and egg rolls (and eye rolls) at Hmong New Year,” Strib Voices, Dec. 4). Although I’m a white mom, I drag my son to my mother-in-law’s celebration of Dia de los Muertos through her nonprofit CAMINO on Lake Street every year. We hand out food and celebrate my son’s Mexican heritage. He rolls his eyes and gets bored but, one day, he will look back on those moments and appreciate his brown skin, his curly hair and the food he loves.

Christine Reyes, St. Louis Park