During the Cultural Revolution in China, healthcare was transformed. These barefoot doctors worked alongside their fellow peasants and brought lifesaving healthcare to them. The left in the Cultural Revolution fought for many aspects of communism: to abolish money and wages, to serve the masses.
Vigilantism Won’t End Capitalist Healthcare or Any Workers’ Problems–Only Communism Can Provide the Universal Healthcare ALL Workers Need
USA, December 14— “I believe everyone is focusing too much on the killer instead of what he was fighting for. There’s way more issues in our society than healthcare, but I think he got the conversation started,” a student told their teacher as they discussed the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
Luigi Mangione, the man arrested for the killing, has sparked mass vocal anger among US workers. Many call him a martyr, a hero who took drastic action to expose the corruption and greed of the healthcare system. For the capitalists, especially the liberal media, his actions are an unjustifiable crime. But communist analysis brings clarity to this situation.
Mangione is not a martyr. He is a vigilante, fed up with a healthcare system that has failed millions of workers including him. Acts like his show profound lack of confidence in the working class. They impede our ability to mobilize for communism. But the outpouring of support has revealed the working class’s true feelings towards the elite.
Workers have called the McDonald’s worker a snitch for tipping off the police. This reaction comes from workers’ frustration. We know all too well the brutal reality of the healthcare system designed to profit from our suffering. We pay into it every year, only to be denied life-saving care when we need it most.
“I’m not saying what he did was right, but I understand why he was so angry,” another said in class.
Liberal Media Can’t Grasp Class Contradictions
The liberal media struggles to understand Mangione’s actions. Their “never kill anyone” moralizing reveals a deep disconnection from workers’ struggles. Their outrage reflects their inability to grasp the scale of the suffering felt by so many who live in a system that rewards corporate greed over human dignity. The media fail to see that Mangione’s act was not mindless violence but a response to the crushing weight of inequality and a medical system that treats our lives as expendable commodities.
Mangione came from a privileged background but eventually saw the inequities of capitalism. His actions reflect the contradictions in capitalist society. Although he was not a revolutionary, Mangione was motivated by a growing awareness of the failures of capitalism. He saw firsthand the devastating impact of healthcare CEOs, like the one he killed, who use their power to deny essential care to millions through AI programs.
However, we must also acknowledge the reality: Mangione’s symbolic act will not change the system. UnitedHealthcare will replace their CEO with another, and the corporate machine will continue to run.
The root problem— capitalism that incentivizes corporate greed—remains firmly in place. The essential issue remains unsolved: how do we ensure that all workers have access to life-saving healthcare?
“The rulers actually want healthcare reform, like Medicare for all,” said a comrade. “Like eliminating some of the obscene profit for health insurance companies and having most doctors work for them instead of tons of separate offices, billing, and insurance companies. Then they can more efficiently ration healthcare.”
“Yes,” another comrade replied. “So they can keep young working-age people healthy and cut care to older people who are retired.”
As long as we have capitalism, which is profit based, we will not get the universal healthcare we need. The answer is clear: we must dismantle the capitalist system that led us to this point and replace it with something radically different. We need communism.
In communism there will be no money. No buying and selling anything. We’ll produce the necessities of life and share them based on need. Healthcare will not be a commodity but a part of collective life.
Mangione’s act is an isolated incident, an individual outburst of rage in the face of capitalism. Until we are mobilized massively to uproot capitalism with communist revolution, the healthcare crisis and all other symptoms of capitalism will persist. It won’t matter how many CEOs are replaced or how many lose their lives.
We cannot strike out on our own. We must be organized in fighting a fight we can win collectively. The students who participated in the classroom discussion asked about Red Flag (which they saw outside school). They and others like them can be recruited to the solution: joining the International Communist Workers’ Party.