Private health insurance has been under scrutiny this week after a gunman murdered Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare on Wednesday. The murder opened a sort of emotional steam valve, and people on social media have used humor to express their rage at a system that’s denied them and their loved ones care, sometimes resulting in death. I will confess that reading through people’s responses was cathartic, even for me.
One person wrote: “I’ve reached my deductible, so I can’t afford to pay my respects.” Another asked: “Did they make sure to route the ambulance to a hospital that was in-network?” Someone else wrote: “Sorry, prior authorization is needed for thoughts and prayers.”
Private health insurance functions in our society to transfer wealth from the working and middle classes to the ultra wealthy. It has accomplished this by turning the denial of coverage, even for medically necessary procedures and medications, into a business plan. In plain language, that means they “create shareholder value” by allowing people to die. And I think the rage underneath all of the social media jokes are questions like these: How is denying coverage for a procedure someone needs to live morally any different than murdering a person in broad daylight? And for that matter, why do we have this system at all when it so clearly does not help everyone?
No, actually, I think the rage underneath the social media jokes is really about realizing the extent of just how horrible what passes for healthcare in America really is, and a shared sense of powerlessness to change it.
The thing is, we’re born into this system. And politicians, who receive donations or are directly invested in health care, work very hard to direct people’s anger away from the injustice of the whole system and onto scapegoats. Right now the trans community is one of those scapegoats, and gender-affirming care is under threat. All so millionaires and billionaires can buy another politician, or another yacht. And because this is our normal in this country, it can take years to even get clear about what to be angry about.
Take this social media post, shared by a friend of mine a few days ago:
The text at the top says: “A two-year old’s family couldn’t afford his $20,000 electric wheelchair, and their insurance didn’t cover it. So a high school robotics team sent him one.”
Here’s what the response beneath says: “This country is so accustomed to its monstrous health care system that when a 2-year old child with a genetic condition needs to rely on a high school robotics team to meet his basic healthcare needs the media thinks it’s a feel-good story, not a dystopian nightmare.”
The way the whole system works together to warp our perspective, keep us focused away from the Injustice of it all is maddening. And if that fills you with rage, good. That means you’re paying attention, that you care about other people, that you are oriented to justice and can imagine a better way for us as a country to be. But this awareness of just how profoundly unfair our world is in so many ways can come overwhelm, deep despair, a sense of powerlessness. And, as Valerie Kaur writes about in the book many of us have been reading this church year, with awareness can come rage.
Did anyone notice how many people began decorating for Christmas like really early this year? People have pushed back decorating earlier and earlier the last few years, but I know people who put up their decorations the day after Halloween this year, – trees, outside lights and all. We just got our tree on Friday, and it truly is soothing, comforting to sit in its glow and enjoy the memories attached to each handmade ornament. Seeking comfort, self-soothing, choosing not to focus on all that’s wrong with the world is an important way to deal with our rage. Because if we focus on it for too long, if we don’t tap out sometimes to reconnect with joy and warmth and all that’s good in the world, we will burn right out like a lightbulb.
But even when we make the time and space to connect with joy, to sink into the holiday spirit, it can be hard to actually feel it, especially when the state of the world is anything but merry and bright. And yet, the stories that Christmas and Hanukkah emerged from are about times of great danger, fear, and injustice. The Maccabees became heroes because they fought back when the Greeks occupied their city and took control of the temple. The birth of Jesus was miraculous for lots of reasons, including that Jesus survived King Herod’s attempt to kill him by ordering the murder of all male children under the age of two born in Bethlehem. Just like today, in the ancient world there was a lot to be angry about.
But, as Valerie Kaur, writes, referencing the beloved story of how Durga and Kali were formed from Hindu and Sikh tradition: “The aim of divine rage [the rage we feel when we become aware of reality] is not vengeance but to reorder the world. It is precise and purposeful, like the focused fury projected into the world from the forehead of the goddess. It points us to the humanity of even those whom we are fighting.”
In other words, rage at injustice, rage at people and systems willing to kill others so they can become richer is not only normal, it can be holy. But doing nothing with that rage but making jokes on social media is at best ineffective and at worst harmful, to others and to ourselves. Untransformed rage can eat away at our hearts, making us callous, bitter, and capable of cheering when a man, however morally wretched, is murdered. Every single one of the 45,000 people a year who die because they can’t afford needed medical care deserves the same coverage that Brian Thompson’s murder got. Because even though our legal system doesn’t recognize it, ethically they were murdered, too.
And yet, I don’t want to be a person who rejoices in the death of anyone, no matter how deeply my heart yearns for righteous vengeance. Because at the end of the day, vengeance will do nothing to stop another 45,000 people from dying next year. But seeking it will further harden my heart, warp my sense of right and wrong, shrink my capacity for compassion. And I don’t want to cede any of that over to an unjust world that has taken too much from too many already.
Instead, as Valerie Kaur writes: “Perhaps our task as human beings is to find safe containers for our raw reactionary rage—and then choose to harness that energy in a way that creates a new world for all of us.”
Advent is the season of watching and waiting for love and hope to be born. And when we’re filled with rage, when our moral indignation is activated, I think the real work is mostly about preparing ourselves to even be able to notice the glimpses of hope and love, mercy and goodness when they do penetrate our lives, our world. Because the new, the good, the just is only possible (and we can only spread, encourage, and magnify it) when we can perceive it.
I wonder.
I wonder what could happen if every person who spends an hour a day scrolling social media took just half that time to connect with organizations working for universal healthcare. I wonder what would be possible if we harnessed our rage energy to work for single-payer healthcare in Maryland, like Vermont has done. Or maybe you feel drawn to a different, safe container for your raw, reactionary rage.
I know many of us, especially parents with kids still at home, are tired, often overscheduled and overbooked. The forces at work in our world intent on injustice are betting that we will get weary, that we won’t take up the power we have. But nothing will change if we don’t change. In difficult days and hard times it is we who must keep one another safe, healthy, and supported.
So maybe this is the season. Maybe this is the time to begin watching and waiting, to see where something new and deeply good, is possible. Maybe this is the season we will take some time to make space inside ourselves and our lives to help that good thing grow and thrive. Maybe that’s how we can use our rage for revolutionary love in the year ahead.
May it be so, and may we make it so.