December 2024
This is the unfolding story of Health Care Insurance in the US, the murder of Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, and the ultimate arrest of Luigi Mangione, 26, in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Events continue to captivate the nation as they unfold touching on the plight of Mangione and the deaths of Americans who couldn't afford needed health care. Some consider Mangione a martyr and are taking up his cause in different ways which are not all legal.
There are those who try to change the system but as everyone knows corporate greed rules in America. With Trump in office and RFK Jr as Trump's pic for the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary - plus no health care plan in motion should they ditch ObamaCare - imagine how bad things will get.
The human experiment was created for emotional value. Therefore humans are not a particularly healthy species programmed to forever deal with emotional and physical problems.
Today we may be more aware of genetic and environment influences on health - but in a bipolar bipartisan world now in its final phase - battles will grow in all aspects of society.
An accident in 2023 left athletic Luigi with a condition called spondylolisthesis where one vertebra slips forward onto the vertebra below it and can potentially lead to erectile dysfunction due to the compression of nerves in the lower back that control sexual function, particularly when the slippage occurs at the L4-L5 level; this is because the nerves exiting from this region are responsible for genital sensation and erectile function. Some have posted that the surgery was botched - but can it be corrected?
You have to wonder why Luigi didn't return home for the surgery and post operative care with the help of his family. Hopefully a second surgery will help alleviate some of his symptoms.
Like a page out of my predominantly Italian-American neighborhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn ... if erectile dysfunction happened to any young man it would be as bad as a death sentence - compounded by chronic pain and what he described as brain fog - which could be from pain killers and/or what he was going through on his own.
The girls in my neighborhood would call Luigi a Guido - not the mobbed-up variety of days gone by who were fun but generally cheated, kept secrets, were ADD, and made lousy partners - but today's version with the same good looks - who visit the gym, are college educated, overachievers, work on their issues, and generally are not marriage minded until their 30's, if at all. All varieties are tied to their families and traditions.
Dad, Louis Mangione, is reportedly the owner of Lorien Health Service. Mom Kathleen runs a boutique travel company and is from a prominent Italian American family. Luigi's paternal grandfather, Nicholas Mangione Sr, was a self-made real estate developer.
The New York Times notes that Luigi's grandparents bought the Turf Valley Country Club in Maryland in the 1970s and expanded their business ventures by purchasing the Hayfields Country Club too. The family also owned the local radio station WCBM. Luigi had a privileged upbringing and went to an Ivy League school.
Luigi has two sisters - MariaSanta reportedly training to be a doctor at the University of Texas Southwestern and Luciana is a visual artist according to Voyage Baltimore, which dubbed her a rising star in a September profile. The siblings reportedly grew up in an US$865,000 home.
Luigi's cousin, Nino Mangione is a Republican Maryland state legislator. Luigi's brother-in-law Paul Giulio - who's married to his sister Lucia - is vice-president of development at property firm Hill Management.
Luigi cut off contact with his family in the months leading up to the shooting. His mother reported him missing to the San Francisco Police Department weeks ago who were instrumental in his capture.