Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the role of Wall Street in so-called health care in the United States.

Has the focus on United Healthcare has increased since the shooting of its CEO by a 26-year-old from a privileged background who was now under arrest?

We'll look into the United Health Group, which is the

country's fourth largest company after Walmart, Amazon and Apple, valued at $560 billion,

with $280 billion in revenues in 2023. Its murdered CEO, Brian Thompson, a father of two, had raised the company's profits from

$12 billion to $16 billion during his tenure and received more than $10 million in

compensation last year.

Joining us is Wendell Potter, who, after a long career in the full-profit health industry as a chief

corporate spokesman at Cigna Corporation and as head of corporate communications at Humana Inc.

is now a senior analyst on health care at the Center for Public Integrity and the founder

of tarbell.org. The author of Deadly Spin and Insurance Company's Insider speaks out on how corporate

PR is killing health care and deceiving Americans. His latest book is Nation on the Take,

How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It. We'll discuss his article.

That's stat news. I used to do health insurance company PR. Here's what I think the backlash is missing.

Then we'll assess the role of Ukrainian military intelligence in helping the rebels topple the

Assad regime and speak with David Ignatius, a prize-winning columnist at the Washington Post

who has covered the Middle East and the CIA for more than 25

years. His novels include Agents of Innocence, Body of Lies, and The Increment, and his latest book

is Phantom Orbit. We will discuss his article at the Washington Post. Syrian rebels had helped

from Ukraine in humiliating Russia.

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