No One Mourns the Wicked

Of witches and health insurance CEOs

Shortly after the opening song, “No One Mourns the Wicked” in the movie Wicked, we’re moved back to the past where Elphaba, the green main character, has a vision that excites her: all the people of the land will rejoice, and it will be because of her.

The tragedy is, of course, that what they’ll be celebrating is her supposed death.

The film Wicked is a movie based on the Broadway musical, which is based on the 1995 book, which I picked up at an airport some 15 years ago and have loved ever since. The musical and movie are very different from the book, but that’s not something I’ll dwell on. Different twists on familiar stories is one of my absolute favorite fiction genres, one I even try to replicate once in a while.

The story is, in many ways, about the pain of people not being who we think they are. The Wizard (played brilliantly by Jeff Goldblum) is venerated by all, including Elphaba. He’s folksy and charming, someone anyone would deem a kind and witty soul.

The realization that he’s behind the fascist suppression of (sentient, human-like) Animals’ civil rights, though, sends Elphaba into a tailspin, and she runs off with the spell book he wanted her to use to consolidate his power.

She’s quickly labeled an enemy of the state by the Wizard and her mentor, called a wicked witch, and her infame spreads throughout the land as she sets off to continue her work to rescue the Animals from their oppression. It’s a stunning betrayal, but she is defiant; she’s used to being cast out and ostracized.

Photo by Sofia Holmberg on Unsplash

In the movie, who’s good and who’s bad is clear, at least to us, eventually, because we see the results of their actions and know of their intentions.

In real life, things can get stickier. Where do we rank the executioner in relation to the one who orders the execution? Where do we rank the victims, and those who love the victims, who have also caused harm to others just on account of being human?

“There’s no such thing as good people or bad people,” my partner often says (quite an unexpected view for a devout Catholic, eh?).

I disagree, but perhaps that’s my ego speaking. After all, if there’s no such thing as a good person, then how can I be a good person?

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For a couple of years, my work involved listening to quarterly earnings investor calls. For the most part, these calls were mind-numbingly boring. If you don’t know what EBITDA means, you should get on your knees and thank the gods right now.

But I listened. And among all the finance-speak (which I am convinced was specifically designed to be completely opaque to any outsiders not working in the world of finance), there were hints of connection to the actual human world.

Sometimes, this was in the form of boasting to one’s investors that they’ve been able to “save on labor” and “increase prices,” often credited for a financial quarter “that we’re very satisfied with.”

Each quarter, of course, every company is expected to grow their profits. There’s no “end goal” when it comes to growth. At no point does any company — at least not these companies — say, “Welp, we’ve gotten to the size we want to be, we’re making as much money as we set out to, and now we’re going to hold steady. Great work, everyone!”

Because the kind of soon-to-be-even-less-regulated capitalism practiced in the United States is like a cancer: the expectation is that one’s company grow and grow and grow until it has completely consumed everything there is to consume.

And the specific thing that’s supposed to grow, what’s measured, is profit for the company and its investors. Not worker well-being, not the superiority of the product or service, not benefit to the society, or even necessarily to customers. “Make as much money as possible” is the goal of the game, and since numbers go on infinitely, so does, potentially, money. Under this model, satiety is not possible.

Most people don’t like this. Most people don’t think CEOs deserve 300 times as much as the average worker to justify their monstrous compensation while so many working people struggle to get even their basic needs met.

Also, most people just don’t understand how it happens, or why it happens, or who’s making it happen. I daresay that many who voted for Trump think they voted against this kind of thing, but the opposite is true. His friends are rich people who want to be richer people, not some dude who can never seem to pick up enough shifts at TJ Maxx. Trump’s got a word for those kinds of people, and it starts with an “L.” He is not on their side.

Still most companies are very good at hiding and obscuring the fact that their ever-growing profits are connected in any way to human misery. Notable exceptions are for-profit prisons and… health insurance companies.

I’m sure you know where I’m going with this. A couple of days ago, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead on his way to an investor meeting. In case there was any doubt regarding the shooter’s motive, “delay,” “deny,” and “depose” were carved into the bullet casings.

UnitedHealthcare, as many of us now know, is one of the worst offenders when it comes to refusing to pay medical expenses, but all insurance companies are guilty. The US is unique among wealthy countries for its expensive healthcare system with no public option. So far, the only thing “universal” about the US healthcare system is the universal suffering in paying for it without sinking into squalor.

My own parents were saddled with forever-debt after the hospital where they worked closed from one day to the next. So my step-father’s essential heart surgery wasn’t covered by insurance after all, as said hospital had stopped paying the premiums without telling the employees and the insurance company of course refused to honor the policies with the workers. He couldn’t jump back into work directly after, and my mother started having more serious health problems then too, no doubt at least partially from the stress. They never recovered physically or financially, and it was all very literally downhill from there.

The hospital’s owners, of course, were just fine. Because the people who hold all the cards are always just fine. And when it comes to healthcare in the US, the literally useless insurance companies hold all the cards, collecting great sums of money from customers and earning profits by trying as hard as they can to not give any of it back. Even healthcare workers don’t like them, since their choices regarding whether or not to cover something effect the treatments they’re able to give patients.

Sums it up pretty well, actually.

Was it right for someone to murder this man? No. I mean, the assassin was hardly Judith chopping off Holofernes’ head to save her people. It didn’t save anyone or solve anything; it was an example, a warning, and almost surely retribution.

Was the crime of his murder worse than the crime of all the people who have suffered and died as a direct result of his company’s profit-making strategies? Absolutely not.

The media has in great part ignored the stories of those who have suffered and died as a result of being denied coverage for essential medical care, a big chunk of them by this particular insurance company. But this CEO’s death is a major story.

He was an important man, perhaps the first rich man to be “eaten” if their worst fears are coming true and this is just the beginning.

But what do people think will happen as naked inequality and blatant unfairness openly pulse through our society, all the while telling people their failures are their own fault, and maybe sometimes immigrants’ fault? It’s so cynical, and people are not that dumb. They can either make it fairer, or they can retreat behind a golden, bullet-proof wall. What little money I have, unfortunately, is on the latter

So was this man wicked?

Well, I’m sure in person he was very nice. He was married, he was a father. It’s almost certain that he was courteous and charming, someone anyone would walk away from smiling after a pleasant conversation. It’s easy to be courteous and charming when you’re not worried about making the rent or one’s groceries.

But on this question, many have come back with a resounding “yes,” He was someone directly responsible for the policies that have ruined their and others’ lives — lives considered infinitely less significant than his.

I’ve read that he sometimes paid lip-service to the desire to improve things for customers, but the fact is that, in insurance as in many other businesses where continuous growth in profits is the only way you get to keep your job, you cannot be on the side of your investors and on the side of your other stakeholders (customers, workers) at the same time. When he was shot, he was on his way to share the good news of who won — who always wins — to the investors.

Unfortunately, the profits are covered in tears and blood. And the customers know it. His assassin certainly knew it.

So people might sound cruel in their blatant lack of sympathy toward this man and his family. But it is not crueler than his and other health insurance companies’ denial of claims that destroy people’s lives by denying the possibility of care for their customers in favor of profits. Few are mourning the source of not-so-anonymous wickedness against them.

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The truth is, of course, that my partner is right. We might have temperaments and characteristics that are better or worse suited for specific historical moments and circumstances.

Daring and irreverence combined with his place and circumstance in the human story made Robin Hood a legend and a hero, but others with those same traits might rightly be classified as sociopaths during other time periods. A sensitive and anxious soul can make a great caretaker, but become a coward at just the wrong moment on the battlefield.

What’s that Russian proverb? The same water that hardens the egg softens the potato?

What a strange mesh of things we humans are. All we can do is hope and try to make it so that our own combination of temperament, circumstance, and place in history doesn’t cause too much suffering in others.

But as many “wicked” will tell you defiantly: it’s harder than it looks.