I recognize that reading about news events in general can be difficult, and for those who have experienced medical stress, this one may be particularly hard. So, I want to invite you to take a few breaths with me, here and now. If focusing on the breath feels like too much, take a moment to notice what is around you, or to bring to mind one thing you are grateful for today. Before reading the rest of this post, bring your attention to your body. Notice whether you are bracing or tense, and see if you can offer your body a little more ease.
Trigger Warning: murder, insurance. Please tend to yourself if you choose to continue to read.

In December 2024, the CEO of United Healthcare was murdered. We've seen a flurry of reporting on this loss, and what is clear is the degree to which people are angry with our healthcare system in the United States. The responses to the death of this man have been bitter.
Each day, as I work with patients, review research, and write, I am confronted with the reality that change is needed in our healthcare systems. We need to experiment with new models of healthcare delivery. We need to think critically about what health actually means to us. We need safe spaces where we can be vulnerable and mortal.
I find myself grieving this entire situation - that care is denied due to insurance limitations, that a man has died, that any 26-year-old could come to a point where they could consider violence a solution to any problem, and that healthcare is provided for profit, which muddies the waters considerably when it comes to how we define and approach health and healing (see this related post on The People's Hospital by Ricardo Nuila). I understand the anger. I also understand how much more powerful anger feels than helplessness, sadness, or hopelessness.
We are allowed to be angry and embittered, to be saddened, and to grieve. We also need ways to channel these emotions towards needed change. These mechanisms are not always readily identifiable, so we feel stuck.
There is so much to every story, whether it is the life of a patient seeking care, the loss of a CEO, or the lived experiences of a provider offering what they can in a complex medical system. And, in any given moment, in any of these stories, those living them may feel like there is no possible pathway through whatever we are facing. This is part of so many lives, and I do not want what I say next to invalidate any part of how awful it feels.
This, too, can pass.
It can pass - with time, and with intention. An immediate solution may not be available, but a future solution may be possible. When hope feels elusive, we have to go looking for progress under every stone. We have to remember to look, and to look in odd places, and to recognize progress even when it does not wear the face of the outcome we immediately desire.
There are people in the world who are asking good questions. Questions like:
And, with time, there will be more practices like Ginkgo Leaf. Practices that take medical trauma seriously, and in which providers are actively learning ways to address it. Practices that see advocacy as part of their mission. Places where it is possible to settle in and approach healing at your own pace.
So, allow yourself to grieve. And, as you do: keep asking good questions. Stay gentle with yourself and curious about the world. Transform your anger into activism and remain awake to possibility and change. Keep seeking solutions that are anchored in the best parts of what it means to be human: our ability to connect, to care, and to communicate. Violence is an answer, yes - it is here, in the world, and we can choose it. But it is not the answer. It is never the only choice.
We do not need heroes. Too often, heroes are people who stand in isolation to fight some imagined enemy for their own glory. We need people. People who are willing to do hard things from a place of real love. We need people who are living prayers.
Be like the ocean
that refuses no river
We can do better. Together, we are stronger. Take a look at our Training, Writing, & Research page for a look at what we are doing at Ginkgo Leaf to help you know that the heartbeat of collective action still pulses, that you are seen and cared for, and that this can pass. We can help birth a new era of health and healing, in solidarity and community with one another.
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