While some journalists call for the October Revolution after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng quipped on Comedy Central on Thursday that just about everyone is a suspect because everyone in America hates their healthcare plan and has a gun.
Chieng recalled how the suspect engraved certain words into the bullets used to kill Thompson, “And now they're trying to interpret what ‘Deny, defend, and depose’ means. And it looks like it's either a criticism of the health insurance industry, or this guy was just trying to solve the Wordle on his bullets. Honestly, I think all bullets should say stuff on them. I mean, how else are we going to get Americans to read again, right? You should load up a machine gun with A Tale of Two Cities written in it. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’”
“Deny, defend, and depose” is almost certainly a play on a 2010 anti-insurance industry book by Jay Feinman entitled Delay, Deny, Defend that claims insurance companies “have an incentive to chisel their customers in order to increase profits.”
As for who the suspect might be, Chieng declared, “Now the cops just need to narrow down their list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their healthcare plan and has access to guns. Should be solved in no time.”
A 2023 survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 81 percent of Americans rate their insurance rating as either “good” or “excellent,” including 80 percent of those who get their insurance through their employer. A 2024 study from the Pacific Research Institute found 91 percent of Americans are satisfied with their plan.
Americans simply aren’t eager to do away with private health insurance. Meanwhile, government-run health care agencies deny healthcare coverage too. In America, we have Medicare, but internationally the Canadian system has a doctor shortage while the Brits ration care all the time in the name of saving money.
Here is a transcript for the December 5 show:
Comedy Central The Daily Show
12/5/2024
11:04 PM ET
RONNY CHIENG: Would you train a mouse to write to write on it with some kind of mouse crayon? I mean, who gives a [bleep] how he wrote it! It's not important how he wrote it, what's important is that he wrote it.
Okay, this guy knows that there are so many bullet casings on the streets of New York, and he wanted to make sure we knew which ones were his, right? And now, yeah, I don't know if we should be applauding that.
And now they're trying to interpret what "Deny, defend, and depose" means. And it looks like it's either a criticism of the health insurance industry, or this guy was just trying to solve the Wordle on his bullets. Honestly, I think all bullets should say stuff on them. I mean, how else are we going to get Americans to read again, right?
You should load up a machine gun with A Tale of Two Cities written in it. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
But now the cops just need to narrow down their list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their healthcare plan and has access to guns. Should be solved in no time.
