December 12, 2024 • 33 mins
The recent assassination of the United Healthcare CEO has led to a surprising social media response. Many people feel the killer was justified. In this episode Eddie and Justin process the murder, the surprising background and characteristics of Luigi Mangione, and what happens next for our society.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Insurance companies need to understand that they have pushed the
American people too far, and the American people are starting
to push back, and I think the insurance companies should
fear the American people. This is Millennial Mental Health Channel.
I'm doctor Justin Romano, a child adolescent psychiatry fellow.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And I'm Medikoio, a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast is
here because we wanted to start a much need to
conversation about mental health.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Our goal is to teach you as much as we
can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in
the mental health field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders,
psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and many more.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope
you enjoyed today's episode.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
MMHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia, I Heart
mir Eddie. Do you own any firearms?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
You know? I don't And I don't know why I'm
like leaning so far into this. My good friends that
I used to live with they do and they have
and like when I was with them for three years,
shout out Carson and mel there was like firearms in
the house, you know that that kind of thing, and
so like that's the closest I think I've ever been
to living in a home with firearms. Other than that,
(01:17):
that's that's it. What about you?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
You know, I don't own any, but I love shooting guns.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, it is pretty fun, Carson. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Growing up, I was like obsessed with BB guns and
NERF guns and I loved it. And my parents were
Californians and they were not into guns. And then now
that I'm older, I'm like, man, I would like to
have a gun maybe one day, but I just don't
think it's quite worth the risk.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I guess, like especially if like you even for me right,
Like I don't know, like there's just something about it that,
like if it was just me, like being in Carson
Mel's house, like I felt totally fine because I knew,
like Carson knew what he was doing and like you'd
keep it safe. But for me on my own, I'm like,
what the fuck, man, this is gonna like like the
super irrational, like, oh, it's just gonna go off by itself,
(02:04):
even if there's no bullets in it or it is.
It's one of those things where if you don't like
grow up with it or have like extensive training. I
think there's always that idea on the back of your
mind of like I don't know how safe I can be.
It's just weird.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, I mean, statistically, you're more likely to get hurt
by your own gun than actually protect yourself with your
own gun.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, see, there you go. There's that's why I have
that thought. I didn't even realize.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, and Wyoming's got a bunch of concealed carry laws
where you can have a gun and carry it without
any sort of permit or anything like that. And so
I've had friends like as soon as that law pass,
they're like, hell, yeah, I'm getting a gun. I'm just like,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
The person that walks around like Windco or Walmart with
like doing the little French tuck action where like you
can see the I'm like, really, man, like what, I
don't care if you got it, but why well you
gotta show it to Speaking of which, actually I think
I can say this. Everybody knows what's happening tomorrow at work.
(03:07):
Some students are doing a walkout actually in protest of
right now, there's no board policy at our school district
that says there's no firearm fire arms allowed on campus,
and our students have talked about this over a couple
of years of like this is we need to fix this.
And I think I might butcher this a little bit,
but I think really it's come down to the state
(03:28):
saying the school districts have to make their own policies
of like basically being a gun free campus. I don't
know if that includes the school resource officer, but I've
heard of. I think like when it comes to student staff,
people that work there, you're not allowed to. But I
think the concern is what about people that are visiting
the school, like parents, parents of students that are playing
(03:51):
against our school, like just things like that that it's
not explicitly stated. I think that's the big concern. So
that's actually happening tomorrow, which I think is pretty cool.
And I think it's cool that they've organized, they've been
they've been at the board meetings, they've been doing the
social media stuff, so good for them. But I figure
you bring up the topic of guns for a reason,
we're not just so.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Eddie and I had a whole episode prepared, We've got
the whole script going, and then all of a sudden,
everything happened with this United Healthcare CEO being murdered assassinated
in New York, and we thought, you know what, let's
talk about that, let's follow the trend here, let's kind
of just discuss it, help us process it, help you
(04:33):
process it, because what a weird time, what a weird
reaction to all of this. So that's why we wanted
to start off with a light question about young gun ownership.
And actually just saw something that the gun that was
used in that murder was a three D printed gun.
I don't know if that's one hundred percent true, but
it's what they were thinking, at least the investigators on
(04:56):
the case. So so much to pack here, Eddie, explain
what happened to people if they have been living under
a rock for the past week.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, So, from my understanding, the CEO of United Healthcare,
whose name has already slipped my mind, he was basically
in New York for I think what was a shareholders
meeting or basically to talk about how much money they
have brought in. And if you're anyone who lives in
the United States has been impacted by the United States
healthcare system that we have or lack thereof. You know
(05:32):
that it comes in different pieces. There's like Medicare, Medicaid,
there's private insurance, there's you know, pay as you goost
type stuff. But recently it's really felt like there's been
a lot of negative attention and a lot of negative
stuff done by private insurances. I would say for me,
you know, in the therapist space on Reddit and in
(05:53):
my therapist circles, I see a lot of conversations about like, Wow,
we're really getting paid shit for the work that we do.
I know, Kevy's about it up with just like how
much her clinic is making per eye exam, you know,
depending on what insurance they're taking, and it's really not
a lot for the really specialized service that they provide.
And I think that goes across the board. Insurance is
just one of those things where people really the words
(06:15):
insurance and scam seem to go together a lot and
a lot of people really feel that way. So in
a time where all of that is going, I think
either what the same day or the day after Blue
Cross Blue Shield actually announced that they were going to
start to limit the amount of hours or time that
they will cover anesthesia during the surgery really poor timing,
(06:36):
and they have since reversed that decision. But basically, it's
a weird time. It feels like it's always a weird
time in our country. But basically, insurance is one of
those things where a lot of people feel like it's
it's shit and it's a scam, and it's really not
what am I paying for? What is it covering? You
see all the time again on Reddit, people will post
(06:57):
this is my bill for an ambulance right that I
took and it was like seven minutes, and this is
how much they were gonna charge me, or this is
how much my pregnancy was gonna cost. But because of
my insurance, I only had to pay three hundred dollars,
But without insurance, it was going to be seventy six
thousand dollars to include the room, the meds they use,
all this stuff. So it's just like you just never
(07:19):
know with our healthcare system, like what's fair, what's not fair.
It's just one of those things that it's a pretty
it's a pretty touchy subject. So all that being said, yeah,
I believe the health United Healthcare was in New York,
their shareholders or their top dogs basically ready to talk
about their earnings and talk about look at all the
money we've made in the early morning hours. The CEO,
(07:40):
did you find out his name?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Brian Thompson?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Brian Thompson leaves his hotel I believe it was a Hilton.
That doesn't really matter, but we'll throw it in there.
Leaves his hotel room and is shot dead I believe
two to three times, and then the shooter walks up
to him I believe, shoots him again at least a
couple more times, and then flees the scene on a
city bike. I think that was positioned. This was a
thought out thing. This was not an accident, This was
(08:06):
not a This was planned. It was premeditated, as they
would say. So yeah, that that kind of like rock
social media. But here's the interesting piece. A lot of people,
and I was telling justin this before we started, this
might be the most united I've seen, not to no
pun intended with United Healthcare, but this might be the
(08:26):
most on the same page I've seen people in a
long time. Especially given the recent election and just how
politics have been in this country, a lot of people
seem to be on the same page. And not that
we're not saying we agree or disagree, but a lot
of people basically seem to be on the same page
of like, fuck that guy, good thing that he died,
and it's weird, it's it's weird, it's interesting, it's it's
(08:48):
all of the words of like, wow, I've never seen
so many people so on the same page of someone
getting murdered, and a lot of like that's I don't know,
it's kind of icky if you think about it. It's
an interesting thing that's been going on.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
We always want to say that we are not pro
violence here at MMHC. And he was a father, He
had two kids, he had a wife, and they are
now without their father, and that's a tragedy in and
of itself. But it's been so surprising to see the
reaction from people. The social media comments, I think one
(09:24):
of the most popular ones being like thoughts and copeys,
thoughts and prior offs for him and his family. People
making fun of the fact that he Brian Thompson, was
in charge of a major corporation that was essentially screwing
over the entire American country or the entire American people,
(09:47):
and so people are making jokes about it. People feel
like they're okay it's justified in their killing. I find
it interesting that only a couple of months ago there
was the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and after
that it seemed like everyone was coming out like left right.
(10:07):
Everyone was like, this is a terrible thing. There should
be no political violence, We should not try and assassinate
our leaders. But then the CEO of major corporation gets
straight up murdered in the street and people are for it.
And I think that just goes to show you how
sick the American people are of corporate greed and how
(10:30):
they have been abused and used by these people. I
do want to give a couple of statistics that United
Healthcare has the highest claim denial rate among insurance companies,
rejecting thirty two percent of submitted claims compared to the
industry average of sixteen percent. So they double the rate
of rejecting people's care. The United Healthcare their profits in
(10:54):
twenty twenty three were two hundred and eighty one billion
with a B dollars damn. So I know personally, I
have had to fight with United Healthcare and their doctors
trying to get my patients the care that me as
the patient's doctor thinks is appropriate, and most of the
(11:16):
time they just do whatever the hell they want. So
in a way, in my mind, I'm thinking, yes, this
is a tragedy. A man was killed, a family goes
without their father, this type of violence is not a
good thing for society. But on the other hand, I'm
thinking to myself, insurance companies need to understand that they
have pushed the American people too far, and the American
(11:39):
people are starting to push back, and I think the
insurance companies should fear the American people.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, I think if I remember correctly, I feel like
it's been at least a couple of years where United
Healthcare has kind of been getting shitted on, like they're
kind of known as like, oh shit, you have United,
Like that's not good. That's been your experience too, But
I feel like that's been a pretty common topic that's
been brought up, like United Healthcare just does not reimburse well,
(12:07):
they do not take care of people. I think the
idea of prior authorization is totally fucked to really think about, like,
you have to have people on your side, hopefully building
a good case for your patients and your clients to
basically get the care that they deserve. And I've heard
it time and time again, people getting like we've had kids,
(12:28):
We've had clients, we have had patients go to another
level of care and then basically be told by their
insurance company like, Okay, that was enough, You're good to go.
I've had kids. When I was in the eating disorder
program working as a therapist, I had kids all the
time where the family would come in and be like, yeah,
insurance isn't covering anymore, today's the last day. We had
weeks ready to go with treatment, but they said because
(12:49):
of this and this, today's the last day. And who's
making those decisions. It wasn't therapists on the other side,
It wasn't psychiatrist, it wasn't mds, it wasn't any type
of healthcare professional. It was whatever, a utilization management person.
I think that's the title, right, And so it's like, yeah,
I think to your point, we're not here to say
violence is a good thing. We're not here to say
(13:10):
that man deserved to die. I think it's just an example,
like people are really fed up, and you said people
are sick of these corporations and greed. You know, it
is an insurance company. People are sick also, and they're
dealing with a lot of shit, and to be told that,
you know, their coverage is not going to cover this
procedure or this treatment or this medication. It's really disheartening
(13:33):
on people. And I think when people are backed into
a corner, they do things like this unfortunately, And again
it's not saying that it's the right thing. And a
quick Google search I was looking at. I don't know
if we're going to say his name or if we've
even mentioned it, but the United Healthcare shooter, he apparently
had a history of like some pretty severe back pain,
(13:54):
and he detailed that like leading up, you know, over
the last four or five years. So I don't know
if it was it a thing like and I think
Justin mentioned before the show, he seems to come from
a pretty wealthy background. So it's like it almost doesn't
make sense of like, you're someone who comes from means
and then you take this action potentially because you weren't
getting the treatment that you needed because of someone like
(14:15):
the healthcare coverage or the insurance company. But it was like,
was this really the kind of person you would expect
to do something like that?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I don't know, No, not me when I heard that
his family, they're millionaires. He went to a private school,
he went to an Ivy league college. He was valedictorian,
he was athletic, he was smart, he was charismatic, or
is all of those things, I should say, And it's
(14:43):
not quite the type of person that you would picture
would do something like that. And time will tell if
there's any sort of mental health element in what's going
on in his mind. It does sound like in the past,
and everyone's just kind of piece together clues from social
media things that in his life. It sounds like in
(15:04):
the past he did have a book club, and for
that book club he got to decide what the books were.
And instead of like doing you know, like Dune or
you know, some sort of like popular book, he jumped
straight into like the biography of the Unibomber, like he
really in the and he idolized the Unibomber, who was
(15:25):
someone who wanted to see the United States burn, like
he wanted to bring down big, powerful structures. So it
sounds like maybe he got into some ideology and got
in deep on the internet, and before you know it,
he was sucked into doing something that seemed like it
didn't fit his character, it didn't seem to fit his demographics.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I think one interesting thing that's come out of all
of this, too, is how you know you brought up
the attempted a sense as an assassination attempt on president
like Donald Trump, and a lot of people have been
saying on social media like, oh, it's been months since
that's happened, and I feel like we know nothing about
the shooter, and then this happened, you know, a week
ago whatever, and it feels like we know everything about
this guy's life. And I almost wonder if how much
(16:07):
of that is like a recency bias, because I feel
like when things did start to come out, we did
kind of learn things. And maybe ultimately what it was
with the attempted the shooter for Donald Trump, they just
didn't really have much of a remarkable life. They seem
to still be pretty young, There wasn't a whole lot
going on, and really maybe what the difference was is
the shooter here with the United Healthcare CEO, he has
(16:30):
had more of like things going on and has more
things to report. So I just it's just interesting how
much just the dynamics of people when things like this
happened like big, and especially with social media, how quickly
we're connected to things, how quickly we know about things.
I had one eye open when I woke up on Instagram.
I'm trying to like I should have been waking up,
(16:50):
but of course I'm scrolling my phone when I wake
up to see the news, and like it didn't fully
register with me what just happened? And is that, you know,
maybe a product of like kind of world we live
in now? Or was I still sleepy? I don't know.
But then then all the stuff started to come of,
like oh, he was leaving his hotel room, he was
going here. He just got killed in cold blood right
(17:11):
in front of the hotel. You know. It's yeah, the
person definitely had it planned out because they had a
bike credit to go and they biked off. There was
this whole thing that I mean, again, just to really
speak to the how much this is like the interactions
between people. One of the subreddits on Reddit that I've
gone to a few times is about backpacks and like
(17:34):
travel backpacks, and there's a couple. There's one called backpacks,
there's one called one bag, there's one called many Baggers,
where people just like really like backpacks and like for
different things, and they were talking about it because the
backpack that it seemed to have potentially had the shooter
was one that's like kind of an expensive and like
nice travel backpack. So even that and then I think
(17:56):
even Reddit got ended up in a few like articles
about it. It's just so interesting, like how many different
groups of people all got kind of roped into one thing.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
One of the main reasons why this shooter has captivated
America and everyone is so focused on it is because
he was kind of attractive, Like it's like the Ted
Bundy effect.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, as soon.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
As those initial pictures came out of him in that smile,
it was like people were curious, people were interested. Do
you think of someone doing something like this as someone
who's destitute, on at the end of their rope, down
on their luck, But he was smiling. The day of
the assassination, he went to Starbucks. You know, he was
(18:42):
caught at a McDonald's. So he was just kind of
living his life, doing his own thing. And you know,
out of curiosity, I asked my wife. I was like,
do you think he's an attractive guy? And she's like, yeah,
he's just kind of like an average Italian looking guy,
and I'm like, hey, that's me.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I'm an average shit to look but he's.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Got definitely got a very Italian name, Luigi Mangioni. That
definitely speaks to our age of social media, and even
way before social media, like I mentioned Ted Bundy, if
someone is attractive, people want to give them more attention.
It makes for a more interesting story, and I think
(19:29):
that's one of the big reasons too why there are
a lot more people on his side.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
You know. I don't know if you remember this, but
there was actually a like meme kind of back in
the day called like the attractive Felon or there was
this like light skin, mixed race, biracial guy who is
like conventionally to a lot of people attractive, and people
were like, oh, he didn't do it, like make jokes
like he's free whatever, but he might've actually done something
(20:03):
really fucked up. But because of his looks, a lot
of people were quick to joke about like, oh, you know,
whatever he did is fine, you know this, and that
he might have ended up actually getting some modeling opportunities
after because of it. But yeah, yeah, I think you
bring up a good point. I think if we think
back to our episode two that we made a while back,
(20:24):
just about like the psychology of humor, thinking about how
people are really quick to make jokes even in the
most fucked up of circumstances. I've been on TikTok to
last week there's some pretty funny shit, like people are posting.
I mean there's people posting they got pictures of mister Luigi.
I think one of the pictures of him, like in
(20:44):
a jail sell or whatever that they posted recently. He's
like in a jumpsuit. People have taken that picture, cut
him out of it, and then have posted pictures of
themselves like at the mall or at the store and
just being like, oh yeah, me and my boy Luigi,
you know, last week six at this time, you know,
trying to like, you know, it's it's so interesting the
(21:06):
collective like he didn't do it. He's free, you know,
like free my guy kind of thing. And I think,
to your boy, his attractiveness probably helps with that.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
And there have been studies on this too, where people
who are attractive are perceived as more knowledgeable, are perceived
as more trustworthy, they have more instant credibility just because
they're attractive. That's why you know a lot of times
in especially like the medical equipment sales business, you always
(21:37):
see attractive young women in those physicians because they're trying
to appeal to male doctors and it's instant credibility. So
he's captured the hearts and minds of America, for better
or for worse. And it's going to be curious to
see how this unfolds. I know he had a three
(21:58):
page manifesto on him, and so it'll be interesting to
try and unpack his journey down this rabbit hole and
what led him to this.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Now we got here, yeah, I think. I don't know
if you heard. I just looked up an article and
I was trying to find exactly the words, but it
sounds like they were able to find three nine millimeter
shellcasings at the crime scene, and apparently there are the
words delayed, deny, and depose written across those bullets. And
actually in this article I'm looking at from CNN. Police
(22:28):
have been looking into whether the words, which title a
twenty ten book critiquing the insurance industry, may have pointed
to a motive in the killing of Brian.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Thompson, which that is the strategy of a lot of
insurance companies to try and make as much money as
possible delay things, deny claims to pose try and stop
themselves from having to pay for other people's healthcare. And yeah,
it sounds like they may have pissed off the wrong guy.
(23:00):
You know that. We talked a little bit about Luigi
and his back pain. It sounds like maybe he's had
some surgeries in the past, but he also comes from
means and should maybe have been able to pay for
these things. So even if he did have a claim denied,
it doesn't seem like he would be the type of
person that would be impacted by that too much. But
you never know. It's yeah, we need more time and information,
(23:23):
and boy, I would love to be the forensic psychiatrist
or psychologist doing the analysis on him and see what's
going on in that mind of his.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I even wondered, I don't know if I've read anything
that has said that he even had United Healthcare huh
as insurance. Has anyone confirmed that?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I don't know. That's a great thing.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Let's see that's and that's the thing. I mean, maybe
he was in a spot where I don't know, I
don't know if we've ever done an episode on this.
But I know there is an issue with like chronic
pain and how much that really takes a toll on people.
So you can imagine someone who's dealt with and back
pain is like off from what I've heard from the people,
and just like in the media, like if you go
(24:05):
years and years and years with you know, debilitating back pain,
like your mental health can take a turn for the
worst and then you start to think certain things and
then those things start to think it seemed like great
ideas because you're having those and it just it just
can spiral. So I just wonder how much maybe that
played a piece into it. Just yeah, I don't even
know if he had. Maybe maybe it was for the CEO,
(24:26):
wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he got to
a point where he was ready to do something and
then with some quick research you found you know, United
Healthcare was in the air. I don't know, there's I
think there is a lot of unanswered questions. But really
just to think about the how does a person get
to that point, how does a society get to the
point where they're on the side of the shooter. I
(24:47):
just yeah, it's interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, it's kind of wild. And question for you, do
you think this is going to change anything? Like is
it really going to change anything in our society?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I mean we mentioned it earlier. Blue Cross Blue Shields
said all right, fuck you and your anesthesia. You get
four hours. Anything past that we're not covering, and then
right after I said, never mind, just kidding, right. I
think people have made jokes about it. I don't know
if it's true or not. Maybe I can do a
quick Google search while I well, I talk a little bit.
(25:20):
But someone was making a joke that, you know, CEOs
and places are going to start to bring stuff back
or like start to like cater to people, And yeah,
it looks like McDonald's is bringing back the snack wrap
in twenty twenty five, you know, And it's like, was
that going to happen before? I don't know it. I
think for a while, and if we really try to
(25:41):
just like openly process this. We look at twenty twenty
and the shit show that was with how it was
handled and where we ended up. We look at how
prices of things and you know, interest rates and stuff
like that kind of we're in the favor of the consumer.
Then we started to see like we've started to see
how much prices feel like they're no longer in favor
(26:03):
of the consumer. And then you know, people are like,
you know, well we have to adjust for inflation, we
have to just for this, and then like analysis coming
out of like, well, this is actually past inflation. This
is extra and even like hearing and I can't list
the source right off the top of my head, but
even hearing from some companies that yeah, some of the
(26:24):
prices were just increased just to make extra money. So
I think if you really think about it, CEOs, I
think have really been getting shitted on recently, you know,
and you hear how much people are making every year.
You hear how much. I mean, Starbucks just got a
new CEO, right, and one of the things that they
announced and that's been all over the news is how
much this person is getting paid every year and how
(26:45):
they live in la but they can just take a
private jet to work whenever they need to to Seattle,
and just these these things were like, these people are
not like the common folk. And I think a lot
more people are feeling more relatable to the rest of
the common folk, and they kind of feel like they
can what they can bond over something like this.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And if you look at the history of unions and
the history of wealth inequality, we haven't had wealth inequality
this bad since I think the nineteen like the nineteen
hundreds or early nineteen hundreds, or even nineteenth century, late
eighteen hundreds. It's getting worse and worse, and corporations are
getting so big, strong and powerful that they're the ones
(27:29):
that are influencing legislation. They're the ones paying the politicians,
they are the ones getting the laws passed to benefit them.
And so the rich are more rich than ever, and
the CEOs and the multi billionaires are at the top
of that. And I don't think it's going to get
much better in the short future because I think I
(27:51):
just saw I think it was a Daily Show clip
or something like that, where it's said that Trump's cabinet
is worth like a collective like eleven billion dollars, Like
he has more billionaires and multimillionaires in his cabin than
by far than anyone else in history. And what do
(28:12):
you think they are going to do. Do you think
they're going to be advocating for the little guy out there?
You know, the mom and pop businesses. They are only
going to make wealth inequality worse, and that's speculation. Maybe
they could be good. I don't know, but it just
seems like people only promote their own interests, and we're
putting people in power who could potentially make all of
(28:34):
this stuff a lot worse, which brings me to my
point of if you're disgruntled with this system, don't go
out and murder someone. Vote Vote for people who actually
take this stuff seriously. Vote for people who actually want equality,
healthcare equality, people who advocate for maybe a single payer insurance,
(28:55):
a government funded insurance to try and get people more
options so that medical and insurance issues don't bankrupt so
many people in this country anymore.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Man, I have no clear thoughts other than that's perfect
way to put it. That's absolutely get out and vote, yeah, seriously.
I will say this is one funny thing I saw.
I saw TikTok that this girl was like, if RFK
bands Dr Pepper, then I'm gonna make January sixth look
like a baby shower. Yikes.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
We can start the whole episode talking about RFKA Junior.
But I do like to use anti processed foods.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
That's fair, But I swear to God if died. Doctor
Pepper is gone. We're gonna have some just kidding.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
No one come to my house for that, please, Okay,
but yeah, it's you know, when Justin brought it up,
brought up the idea of just kind of let's just
talk about what's happened.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
You know, we we talked popular culture on the show.
We talk we talk all things mental health, which I
think is coolest, fucking a lot of fun, and you
all listen. And we had our Spotify rap recently come out.
I haven't even told you about it. Oh yeah, yeah,
so I totally forgot. You know, we have listeners, which
is a lot of fun. We you know, grew fourteen
percent on Spotify. I think we were for like four
hundred and eighty people, were a top twenty five show,
(30:18):
for another like two hundred, we were a top like ten,
and then for like forty something people, we were number
one as a podcast. So just we talk about popular culture,
We talk about all things, but this is one that like,
this is real fresh and we have like zero notes
on it. But I think I think it is something
that relates to society and our mental health and our
(30:39):
well being and the sociology of collectivists and collective thoughts
on a singular topic. Well, I think another thing I
saw too, and I don't know much more about it
to really add But people are like, what's going to
happen with a jury in something like this? Like what
can you do? Like can you find anybody that's not biased?
Can you find people? I don't know. It's a really
(31:03):
it's gonna be a problem, is my guess. It's gonna
be a real big problem. So I don't know. I
don't know if this is enough to get CEOs or
people in charge to be like, ah shit, maybe I
got to calm down a little bit. I don't know,
but it's it's definitely a pretty significant thing that's happened
real fast and made a pretty what it feels like
(31:25):
a really big impact in our history and could potentially
have a big impact on our overall country's history.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, agreed, it's a big moment in time. It'll be
interesting to see how we move forward. And I know
you brought up Spotify wrapped. Please share this podcast. Board
of mouth is a big reason why we've gotten bigger
and grown. If you don't mind, subscribe to the show.
Give us a five star rating. If you liked it,
(31:53):
if we brought something to the table that you enjoyed,
it really helps us grow. I feel like we need
to start saying that more often, like hey for the algorithm,
them smash that one button, because that's us. It's very authentic.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Right now. If I can share some numbers with you,
because this is how much we appreciate you. We have
eleven thousand listeners on Spotify, and then we have two
thousand followers on Spotify, which I think is super fucking cool.
Still our humble beginning. So I guess maybe we're turning
the end of this episode into a reflection and a
(32:26):
thank you, especially as we head into the new year.
But yeah, thanks everyone.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, all right, my friend play us out.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Let's wrap it. Thank you all for listening. We hope
you appreciate it, our ramblings and our thoughts. It's an
interesting thing that we might have to revisit at some point,
whether it's twenty twenty five or the nearest future. But
you know the deal. On Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you
get your podcasts, feel free to like, subscribe, share, leave
a comment, leave us a five star review, whatever it is.
(32:55):
Follow us on Instagram. TikTok. We don't really use the Twitter.
Fuck that place YouTube at Millennial MHCN. Check out our
website www dot millennialmhc dot com. Thank you all, Happy
rest of twenty twenty four, Happy New Year. We'll see
you once we get back. We're gonna take a few
weeks off, but we'll be back right when twenty twenty
five hits. We appreciate you all and remember take care
(33:18):
of all mentors.
Insurance companies need to understand that they have pushed the
American people too far, and the American people are starting
to push back, and I think the insurance companies should
fear the American people. This is Millennial Mental Health Channel.
I'm doctor Justin Romano, a child adolescent psychiatry fellow.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
And I'm Medikoio, a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast is
here because we wanted to start a much need to
conversation about mental health.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Our goal is to teach you as much as we
can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in
the mental health field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders,
psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and many more.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope
you enjoyed today's episode.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
MMHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia, I Heart
mir Eddie. Do you own any firearms?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
You know? I don't And I don't know why I'm
like leaning so far into this. My good friends that
I used to live with they do and they have
and like when I was with them for three years,
shout out Carson and mel there was like firearms in
the house, you know that that kind of thing, and
so like that's the closest I think I've ever been
to living in a home with firearms. Other than that,
(01:17):
that's that's it. What about you?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
You know, I don't own any, but I love shooting guns.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, it is pretty fun, Carson. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Growing up, I was like obsessed with BB guns and
NERF guns and I loved it. And my parents were
Californians and they were not into guns. And then now
that I'm older, I'm like, man, I would like to
have a gun maybe one day, but I just don't
think it's quite worth the risk.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I guess, like especially if like you even for me right,
Like I don't know, like there's just something about it that,
like if it was just me, like being in Carson
Mel's house, like I felt totally fine because I knew,
like Carson knew what he was doing and like you'd
keep it safe. But for me on my own, I'm like,
what the fuck, man, this is gonna like like the
super irrational, like, oh, it's just gonna go off by itself,
(02:04):
even if there's no bullets in it or it is.
It's one of those things where if you don't like
grow up with it or have like extensive training. I
think there's always that idea on the back of your
mind of like I don't know how safe I can be.
It's just weird.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, I mean, statistically, you're more likely to get hurt
by your own gun than actually protect yourself with your
own gun.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, see, there you go. There's that's why I have
that thought. I didn't even realize.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, and Wyoming's got a bunch of concealed carry laws
where you can have a gun and carry it without
any sort of permit or anything like that. And so
I've had friends like as soon as that law pass,
they're like, hell, yeah, I'm getting a gun. I'm just like,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
The person that walks around like Windco or Walmart with
like doing the little French tuck action where like you
can see the I'm like, really, man, like what, I
don't care if you got it, but why well you
gotta show it to Speaking of which, actually I think
I can say this. Everybody knows what's happening tomorrow at work.
(03:07):
Some students are doing a walkout actually in protest of
right now, there's no board policy at our school district
that says there's no firearm fire arms allowed on campus,
and our students have talked about this over a couple
of years of like this is we need to fix this.
And I think I might butcher this a little bit,
but I think really it's come down to the state
(03:28):
saying the school districts have to make their own policies
of like basically being a gun free campus. I don't
know if that includes the school resource officer, but I've
heard of. I think like when it comes to student staff,
people that work there, you're not allowed to. But I
think the concern is what about people that are visiting
the school, like parents, parents of students that are playing
(03:51):
against our school, like just things like that that it's
not explicitly stated. I think that's the big concern. So
that's actually happening tomorrow, which I think is pretty cool.
And I think it's cool that they've organized, they've been
they've been at the board meetings, they've been doing the
social media stuff, so good for them. But I figure
you bring up the topic of guns for a reason,
we're not just so.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Eddie and I had a whole episode prepared, We've got
the whole script going, and then all of a sudden,
everything happened with this United Healthcare CEO being murdered assassinated
in New York, and we thought, you know what, let's
talk about that, let's follow the trend here, let's kind
of just discuss it, help us process it, help you
(04:33):
process it, because what a weird time, what a weird
reaction to all of this. So that's why we wanted
to start off with a light question about young gun ownership.
And actually just saw something that the gun that was
used in that murder was a three D printed gun.
I don't know if that's one hundred percent true, but
it's what they were thinking, at least the investigators on
(04:56):
the case. So so much to pack here, Eddie, explain
what happened to people if they have been living under
a rock for the past week.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, So, from my understanding, the CEO of United Healthcare,
whose name has already slipped my mind, he was basically
in New York for I think what was a shareholders
meeting or basically to talk about how much money they
have brought in. And if you're anyone who lives in
the United States has been impacted by the United States
healthcare system that we have or lack thereof. You know
(05:32):
that it comes in different pieces. There's like Medicare, Medicaid,
there's private insurance, there's you know, pay as you goost
type stuff. But recently it's really felt like there's been
a lot of negative attention and a lot of negative
stuff done by private insurances. I would say for me,
you know, in the therapist space on Reddit and in
(05:53):
my therapist circles, I see a lot of conversations about like, Wow,
we're really getting paid shit for the work that we do.
I know, Kevy's about it up with just like how
much her clinic is making per eye exam, you know,
depending on what insurance they're taking, and it's really not
a lot for the really specialized service that they provide.
And I think that goes across the board. Insurance is
just one of those things where people really the words
(06:15):
insurance and scam seem to go together a lot and
a lot of people really feel that way. So in
a time where all of that is going, I think
either what the same day or the day after Blue
Cross Blue Shield actually announced that they were going to
start to limit the amount of hours or time that
they will cover anesthesia during the surgery really poor timing,
(06:36):
and they have since reversed that decision. But basically, it's
a weird time. It feels like it's always a weird
time in our country. But basically, insurance is one of
those things where a lot of people feel like it's
it's shit and it's a scam, and it's really not
what am I paying for? What is it covering? You
see all the time again on Reddit, people will post
(06:57):
this is my bill for an ambulance right that I
took and it was like seven minutes, and this is
how much they were gonna charge me, or this is
how much my pregnancy was gonna cost. But because of
my insurance, I only had to pay three hundred dollars,
But without insurance, it was going to be seventy six
thousand dollars to include the room, the meds they use,
all this stuff. So it's just like you just never
(07:19):
know with our healthcare system, like what's fair, what's not fair.
It's just one of those things that it's a pretty
it's a pretty touchy subject. So all that being said, yeah,
I believe the health United Healthcare was in New York,
their shareholders or their top dogs basically ready to talk
about their earnings and talk about look at all the
money we've made in the early morning hours. The CEO,
(07:40):
did you find out his name?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Brian Thompson?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Brian Thompson leaves his hotel I believe it was a Hilton.
That doesn't really matter, but we'll throw it in there.
Leaves his hotel room and is shot dead I believe
two to three times, and then the shooter walks up
to him I believe, shoots him again at least a
couple more times, and then flees the scene on a
city bike. I think that was positioned. This was a
thought out thing. This was not an accident, This was
(08:06):
not a This was planned. It was premeditated, as they
would say. So yeah, that that kind of like rock
social media. But here's the interesting piece. A lot of people,
and I was telling justin this before we started, this
might be the most united I've seen, not to no
pun intended with United Healthcare, but this might be the
(08:26):
most on the same page I've seen people in a
long time. Especially given the recent election and just how
politics have been in this country, a lot of people
seem to be on the same page. And not that
we're not saying we agree or disagree, but a lot
of people basically seem to be on the same page
of like, fuck that guy, good thing that he died,
and it's weird, it's it's weird, it's interesting, it's it's
(08:48):
all of the words of like, wow, I've never seen
so many people so on the same page of someone
getting murdered, and a lot of like that's I don't know,
it's kind of icky if you think about it. It's
an interesting thing that's been going on.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
We always want to say that we are not pro
violence here at MMHC. And he was a father, He
had two kids, he had a wife, and they are
now without their father, and that's a tragedy in and
of itself. But it's been so surprising to see the
reaction from people. The social media comments, I think one
(09:24):
of the most popular ones being like thoughts and copeys,
thoughts and prior offs for him and his family. People
making fun of the fact that he Brian Thompson, was
in charge of a major corporation that was essentially screwing
over the entire American country or the entire American people,
(09:47):
and so people are making jokes about it. People feel
like they're okay it's justified in their killing. I find
it interesting that only a couple of months ago there
was the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and after
that it seemed like everyone was coming out like left right.
(10:07):
Everyone was like, this is a terrible thing. There should
be no political violence, We should not try and assassinate
our leaders. But then the CEO of major corporation gets
straight up murdered in the street and people are for it.
And I think that just goes to show you how
sick the American people are of corporate greed and how
(10:30):
they have been abused and used by these people. I
do want to give a couple of statistics that United
Healthcare has the highest claim denial rate among insurance companies,
rejecting thirty two percent of submitted claims compared to the
industry average of sixteen percent. So they double the rate
of rejecting people's care. The United Healthcare their profits in
(10:54):
twenty twenty three were two hundred and eighty one billion
with a B dollars damn. So I know personally, I
have had to fight with United Healthcare and their doctors
trying to get my patients the care that me as
the patient's doctor thinks is appropriate, and most of the
(11:16):
time they just do whatever the hell they want. So
in a way, in my mind, I'm thinking, yes, this
is a tragedy. A man was killed, a family goes
without their father, this type of violence is not a
good thing for society. But on the other hand, I'm
thinking to myself, insurance companies need to understand that they
have pushed the American people too far, and the American
(11:39):
people are starting to push back, and I think the
insurance companies should fear the American people.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, I think if I remember correctly, I feel like
it's been at least a couple of years where United
Healthcare has kind of been getting shitted on, like they're
kind of known as like, oh shit, you have United,
Like that's not good. That's been your experience too, But
I feel like that's been a pretty common topic that's
been brought up, like United Healthcare just does not reimburse well,
(12:07):
they do not take care of people. I think the
idea of prior authorization is totally fucked to really think about, like,
you have to have people on your side, hopefully building
a good case for your patients and your clients to
basically get the care that they deserve. And I've heard
it time and time again, people getting like we've had kids,
(12:28):
We've had clients, we have had patients go to another
level of care and then basically be told by their
insurance company like, Okay, that was enough, You're good to go.
I've had kids. When I was in the eating disorder
program working as a therapist, I had kids all the
time where the family would come in and be like, yeah,
insurance isn't covering anymore, today's the last day. We had
weeks ready to go with treatment, but they said because
(12:49):
of this and this, today's the last day. And who's
making those decisions. It wasn't therapists on the other side,
It wasn't psychiatrist, it wasn't mds, it wasn't any type
of healthcare professional. It was whatever, a utilization management person.
I think that's the title, right, And so it's like, yeah,
I think to your point, we're not here to say
violence is a good thing. We're not here to say
(13:10):
that man deserved to die. I think it's just an example,
like people are really fed up, and you said people
are sick of these corporations and greed. You know, it
is an insurance company. People are sick also, and they're
dealing with a lot of shit, and to be told that,
you know, their coverage is not going to cover this
procedure or this treatment or this medication. It's really disheartening
(13:33):
on people. And I think when people are backed into
a corner, they do things like this unfortunately, And again
it's not saying that it's the right thing. And a
quick Google search I was looking at. I don't know
if we're going to say his name or if we've
even mentioned it, but the United Healthcare shooter, he apparently
had a history of like some pretty severe back pain,
(13:54):
and he detailed that like leading up, you know, over
the last four or five years. So I don't know
if it was it a thing like and I think
Justin mentioned before the show, he seems to come from
a pretty wealthy background. So it's like it almost doesn't
make sense of like, you're someone who comes from means
and then you take this action potentially because you weren't
getting the treatment that you needed because of someone like
(14:15):
the healthcare coverage or the insurance company. But it was like,
was this really the kind of person you would expect
to do something like that?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I don't know, No, not me when I heard that
his family, they're millionaires. He went to a private school,
he went to an Ivy league college. He was valedictorian,
he was athletic, he was smart, he was charismatic, or
is all of those things, I should say, And it's
(14:43):
not quite the type of person that you would picture
would do something like that. And time will tell if
there's any sort of mental health element in what's going
on in his mind. It does sound like in the past,
and everyone's just kind of piece together clues from social
media things that in his life. It sounds like in
(15:04):
the past he did have a book club, and for
that book club he got to decide what the books were.
And instead of like doing you know, like Dune or
you know, some sort of like popular book, he jumped
straight into like the biography of the Unibomber, like he
really in the and he idolized the Unibomber, who was
(15:25):
someone who wanted to see the United States burn, like
he wanted to bring down big, powerful structures. So it
sounds like maybe he got into some ideology and got
in deep on the internet, and before you know it,
he was sucked into doing something that seemed like it
didn't fit his character, it didn't seem to fit his demographics.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I think one interesting thing that's come out of all
of this, too, is how you know you brought up
the attempted a sense as an assassination attempt on president
like Donald Trump, and a lot of people have been
saying on social media like, oh, it's been months since
that's happened, and I feel like we know nothing about
the shooter, and then this happened, you know, a week
ago whatever, and it feels like we know everything about
this guy's life. And I almost wonder if how much
(16:07):
of that is like a recency bias, because I feel
like when things did start to come out, we did
kind of learn things. And maybe ultimately what it was
with the attempted the shooter for Donald Trump, they just
didn't really have much of a remarkable life. They seem
to still be pretty young, There wasn't a whole lot
going on, and really maybe what the difference was is
the shooter here with the United Healthcare CEO, he has
(16:30):
had more of like things going on and has more
things to report. So I just it's just interesting how
much just the dynamics of people when things like this
happened like big, and especially with social media, how quickly
we're connected to things, how quickly we know about things.
I had one eye open when I woke up on Instagram.
I'm trying to like I should have been waking up,
(16:50):
but of course I'm scrolling my phone when I wake
up to see the news, and like it didn't fully
register with me what just happened? And is that, you know,
maybe a product of like kind of world we live
in now? Or was I still sleepy? I don't know.
But then then all the stuff started to come of,
like oh, he was leaving his hotel room, he was
going here. He just got killed in cold blood right
(17:11):
in front of the hotel. You know. It's yeah, the
person definitely had it planned out because they had a
bike credit to go and they biked off. There was
this whole thing that I mean, again, just to really
speak to the how much this is like the interactions
between people. One of the subreddits on Reddit that I've
gone to a few times is about backpacks and like
(17:34):
travel backpacks, and there's a couple. There's one called backpacks,
there's one called one bag, there's one called many Baggers,
where people just like really like backpacks and like for
different things, and they were talking about it because the
backpack that it seemed to have potentially had the shooter
was one that's like kind of an expensive and like
nice travel backpack. So even that and then I think
(17:56):
even Reddit got ended up in a few like articles
about it. It's just so interesting, like how many different
groups of people all got kind of roped into one thing.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
One of the main reasons why this shooter has captivated
America and everyone is so focused on it is because
he was kind of attractive, Like it's like the Ted
Bundy effect.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, as soon.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
As those initial pictures came out of him in that smile,
it was like people were curious, people were interested. Do
you think of someone doing something like this as someone
who's destitute, on at the end of their rope, down
on their luck, But he was smiling. The day of
the assassination, he went to Starbucks. You know, he was
(18:42):
caught at a McDonald's. So he was just kind of
living his life, doing his own thing. And you know,
out of curiosity, I asked my wife. I was like,
do you think he's an attractive guy? And she's like, yeah,
he's just kind of like an average Italian looking guy,
and I'm like, hey, that's me.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I'm an average shit to look but he's.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Got definitely got a very Italian name, Luigi Mangioni. That
definitely speaks to our age of social media, and even
way before social media, like I mentioned Ted Bundy, if
someone is attractive, people want to give them more attention.
It makes for a more interesting story, and I think
(19:29):
that's one of the big reasons too why there are
a lot more people on his side.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
You know. I don't know if you remember this, but
there was actually a like meme kind of back in
the day called like the attractive Felon or there was
this like light skin, mixed race, biracial guy who is
like conventionally to a lot of people attractive, and people
were like, oh, he didn't do it, like make jokes
like he's free whatever, but he might've actually done something
(20:03):
really fucked up. But because of his looks, a lot
of people were quick to joke about like, oh, you know,
whatever he did is fine, you know this, and that
he might have ended up actually getting some modeling opportunities
after because of it. But yeah, yeah, I think you
bring up a good point. I think if we think
back to our episode two that we made a while back,
(20:24):
just about like the psychology of humor, thinking about how
people are really quick to make jokes even in the
most fucked up of circumstances. I've been on TikTok to
last week there's some pretty funny shit, like people are posting.
I mean there's people posting they got pictures of mister Luigi.
I think one of the pictures of him, like in
(20:44):
a jail sell or whatever that they posted recently. He's
like in a jumpsuit. People have taken that picture, cut
him out of it, and then have posted pictures of
themselves like at the mall or at the store and
just being like, oh yeah, me and my boy Luigi,
you know, last week six at this time, you know,
trying to like, you know, it's it's so interesting the
(21:06):
collective like he didn't do it. He's free, you know,
like free my guy kind of thing. And I think,
to your boy, his attractiveness probably helps with that.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
And there have been studies on this too, where people
who are attractive are perceived as more knowledgeable, are perceived
as more trustworthy, they have more instant credibility just because
they're attractive. That's why you know a lot of times
in especially like the medical equipment sales business, you always
(21:37):
see attractive young women in those physicians because they're trying
to appeal to male doctors and it's instant credibility. So
he's captured the hearts and minds of America, for better
or for worse. And it's going to be curious to
see how this unfolds. I know he had a three
(21:58):
page manifesto on him, and so it'll be interesting to
try and unpack his journey down this rabbit hole and
what led him to this.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Now we got here, yeah, I think. I don't know
if you heard. I just looked up an article and
I was trying to find exactly the words, but it
sounds like they were able to find three nine millimeter
shellcasings at the crime scene, and apparently there are the
words delayed, deny, and depose written across those bullets. And
actually in this article I'm looking at from CNN. Police
(22:28):
have been looking into whether the words, which title a
twenty ten book critiquing the insurance industry, may have pointed
to a motive in the killing of Brian.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Thompson, which that is the strategy of a lot of
insurance companies to try and make as much money as
possible delay things, deny claims to pose try and stop
themselves from having to pay for other people's healthcare. And yeah,
it sounds like they may have pissed off the wrong guy.
(23:00):
You know that. We talked a little bit about Luigi
and his back pain. It sounds like maybe he's had
some surgeries in the past, but he also comes from
means and should maybe have been able to pay for
these things. So even if he did have a claim denied,
it doesn't seem like he would be the type of
person that would be impacted by that too much. But
you never know. It's yeah, we need more time and information,
(23:23):
and boy, I would love to be the forensic psychiatrist
or psychologist doing the analysis on him and see what's
going on in that mind of his.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I even wondered, I don't know if I've read anything
that has said that he even had United Healthcare huh
as insurance. Has anyone confirmed that?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I don't know. That's a great thing.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Let's see that's and that's the thing. I mean, maybe
he was in a spot where I don't know, I
don't know if we've ever done an episode on this.
But I know there is an issue with like chronic
pain and how much that really takes a toll on people.
So you can imagine someone who's dealt with and back
pain is like off from what I've heard from the people,
and just like in the media, like if you go
(24:05):
years and years and years with you know, debilitating back pain,
like your mental health can take a turn for the
worst and then you start to think certain things and
then those things start to think it seemed like great
ideas because you're having those and it just it just
can spiral. So I just wonder how much maybe that
played a piece into it. Just yeah, I don't even
know if he had. Maybe maybe it was for the CEO,
(24:26):
wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he got to
a point where he was ready to do something and
then with some quick research you found you know, United
Healthcare was in the air. I don't know, there's I
think there is a lot of unanswered questions. But really
just to think about the how does a person get
to that point, how does a society get to the
point where they're on the side of the shooter. I
(24:47):
just yeah, it's interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, it's kind of wild. And question for you, do
you think this is going to change anything? Like is
it really going to change anything in our society?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I mean we mentioned it earlier. Blue Cross Blue Shields
said all right, fuck you and your anesthesia. You get
four hours. Anything past that we're not covering, and then
right after I said, never mind, just kidding, right. I
think people have made jokes about it. I don't know
if it's true or not. Maybe I can do a
quick Google search while I well, I talk a little bit.
(25:20):
But someone was making a joke that, you know, CEOs
and places are going to start to bring stuff back
or like start to like cater to people, And yeah,
it looks like McDonald's is bringing back the snack wrap
in twenty twenty five, you know, And it's like, was
that going to happen before? I don't know it. I
think for a while, and if we really try to
(25:41):
just like openly process this. We look at twenty twenty
and the shit show that was with how it was
handled and where we ended up. We look at how
prices of things and you know, interest rates and stuff
like that kind of we're in the favor of the consumer.
Then we started to see like we've started to see
how much prices feel like they're no longer in favor
(26:03):
of the consumer. And then you know, people are like,
you know, well we have to adjust for inflation, we
have to just for this, and then like analysis coming
out of like, well, this is actually past inflation. This
is extra and even like hearing and I can't list
the source right off the top of my head, but
even hearing from some companies that yeah, some of the
(26:24):
prices were just increased just to make extra money. So
I think if you really think about it, CEOs, I
think have really been getting shitted on recently, you know,
and you hear how much people are making every year.
You hear how much. I mean, Starbucks just got a
new CEO, right, and one of the things that they
announced and that's been all over the news is how
much this person is getting paid every year and how
(26:45):
they live in la but they can just take a
private jet to work whenever they need to to Seattle,
and just these these things were like, these people are
not like the common folk. And I think a lot
more people are feeling more relatable to the rest of
the common folk, and they kind of feel like they
can what they can bond over something like this.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And if you look at the history of unions and
the history of wealth inequality, we haven't had wealth inequality
this bad since I think the nineteen like the nineteen
hundreds or early nineteen hundreds, or even nineteenth century, late
eighteen hundreds. It's getting worse and worse, and corporations are
getting so big, strong and powerful that they're the ones
(27:29):
that are influencing legislation. They're the ones paying the politicians,
they are the ones getting the laws passed to benefit them.
And so the rich are more rich than ever, and
the CEOs and the multi billionaires are at the top
of that. And I don't think it's going to get
much better in the short future because I think I
(27:51):
just saw I think it was a Daily Show clip
or something like that, where it's said that Trump's cabinet
is worth like a collective like eleven billion dollars, Like
he has more billionaires and multimillionaires in his cabin than
by far than anyone else in history. And what do
(28:12):
you think they are going to do. Do you think
they're going to be advocating for the little guy out there?
You know, the mom and pop businesses. They are only
going to make wealth inequality worse, and that's speculation. Maybe
they could be good. I don't know, but it just
seems like people only promote their own interests, and we're
putting people in power who could potentially make all of
(28:34):
this stuff a lot worse, which brings me to my
point of if you're disgruntled with this system, don't go
out and murder someone. Vote Vote for people who actually
take this stuff seriously. Vote for people who actually want equality,
healthcare equality, people who advocate for maybe a single payer insurance,
(28:55):
a government funded insurance to try and get people more
options so that medical and insurance issues don't bankrupt so
many people in this country anymore.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Man, I have no clear thoughts other than that's perfect
way to put it. That's absolutely get out and vote, yeah, seriously.
I will say this is one funny thing I saw.
I saw TikTok that this girl was like, if RFK
bands Dr Pepper, then I'm gonna make January sixth look
like a baby shower. Yikes.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
We can start the whole episode talking about RFKA Junior.
But I do like to use anti processed foods.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
That's fair, But I swear to God if died. Doctor
Pepper is gone. We're gonna have some just kidding.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
No one come to my house for that, please, Okay,
but yeah, it's you know, when Justin brought it up,
brought up the idea of just kind of let's just
talk about what's happened.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
You know, we we talked popular culture on the show.
We talk we talk all things mental health, which I
think is coolest, fucking a lot of fun, and you
all listen. And we had our Spotify rap recently come out.
I haven't even told you about it. Oh yeah, yeah,
so I totally forgot. You know, we have listeners, which
is a lot of fun. We you know, grew fourteen
percent on Spotify. I think we were for like four
hundred and eighty people, were a top twenty five show,
(30:18):
for another like two hundred, we were a top like ten,
and then for like forty something people, we were number
one as a podcast. So just we talk about popular culture,
We talk about all things, but this is one that like,
this is real fresh and we have like zero notes
on it. But I think I think it is something
that relates to society and our mental health and our
(30:39):
well being and the sociology of collectivists and collective thoughts
on a singular topic. Well, I think another thing I
saw too, and I don't know much more about it
to really add But people are like, what's going to
happen with a jury in something like this? Like what
can you do? Like can you find anybody that's not biased?
Can you find people? I don't know. It's a really
(31:03):
it's gonna be a problem, is my guess. It's gonna
be a real big problem. So I don't know. I
don't know if this is enough to get CEOs or
people in charge to be like, ah shit, maybe I
got to calm down a little bit. I don't know,
but it's it's definitely a pretty significant thing that's happened
real fast and made a pretty what it feels like
(31:25):
a really big impact in our history and could potentially
have a big impact on our overall country's history.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, agreed, it's a big moment in time. It'll be
interesting to see how we move forward. And I know
you brought up Spotify wrapped. Please share this podcast. Board
of mouth is a big reason why we've gotten bigger
and grown. If you don't mind, subscribe to the show.
Give us a five star rating. If you liked it,
(31:53):
if we brought something to the table that you enjoyed,
it really helps us grow. I feel like we need
to start saying that more often, like hey for the algorithm,
them smash that one button, because that's us. It's very authentic.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Right now. If I can share some numbers with you,
because this is how much we appreciate you. We have
eleven thousand listeners on Spotify, and then we have two
thousand followers on Spotify, which I think is super fucking cool.
Still our humble beginning. So I guess maybe we're turning
the end of this episode into a reflection and a
(32:26):
thank you, especially as we head into the new year.
But yeah, thanks everyone.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, all right, my friend play us out.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Let's wrap it. Thank you all for listening. We hope
you appreciate it, our ramblings and our thoughts. It's an
interesting thing that we might have to revisit at some point,
whether it's twenty twenty five or the nearest future. But
you know the deal. On Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you
get your podcasts, feel free to like, subscribe, share, leave
a comment, leave us a five star review, whatever it is.
(32:55):
Follow us on Instagram. TikTok. We don't really use the Twitter.
Fuck that place YouTube at Millennial MHCN. Check out our
website www dot millennialmhc dot com. Thank you all, Happy
rest of twenty twenty four, Happy New Year. We'll see
you once we get back. We're gonna take a few
weeks off, but we'll be back right when twenty twenty
five hits. We appreciate you all and remember take care
(33:18):
of all mentors.
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