It's not UHC who would offer a plea deal- it's the state of New York. I don't see a reason to "make it go away". The state of New York has already gotten the bad publicity because it happened there and he escaped NY for 5 days. They have no obligation to offer him a plea deal, nor to accept on he might offer. Plea deals are usually offered when it's a weak case. I don't think the healthcare industry will be impacted long-term by this one-off whacko, even if there is some public support for him.
If he wanted to be a "sympathetic defendant", he'd have had a much better case if he had actually had United Healthcare and he or a loved one had actually been denied coverage by them. He was able to obtain back surgery from whoever was his healthcare provider.
Since there's obviously a huge number of people "on his side", as far as hate for the health insurance industry goes, he had a great chance of coming out as a "hero" activist or as you say, a sympathetic defendant, if he had only stuck to choices in which nobody died! He should have set their corporate office on fire, when no employees were in the building. That's probably easier said than done, so probably not that, but I'm sure he could have thought of something just as dramatic and newsbreaking and sensational that would get a lot of media and public attention, and yes, sympathy for his position against the industry. It could be almost anything, as long as he didn't have to kill anybody to do it! Wouldn't even have to be anything tragic, like arson. He could have alerted the media to be there when he bravely scaled their high rise office, risking his own life to hang a banner bearing words shaming the industry. He could even have done it bare-chested, showing off his marvelous muscled body (if he still has it!) And he could have kept on doing daredevil feats of various kinds until the industry was properly shamed, which wouldn't take long with a handsome hero as their antagonist, fast gaining the public's admiration, and becoming a beloved legend.
Probably silly, but I am 100 percent sure he could have come up with other ideas that would have done as much to bring out the public anti-health insurance sentiment as the one he chose, none of which included murdering anyone!
If he really wanted to put in the work, he could have sweated out a complete business plan, an alternative model in opposition to what we have now in place, something that works better to cover the country's healthcare needs that is more compassionate and driven by and for humans, not algorithms and AI. Or even make a better AI. He'd probably be good at fundraising and bringing in venture capitalists and angel investors (he checks all the right boxes - or he DID!) He could even start off with dramatic, generous offers to pay off individual medical bills, in a sweepstakes or whatever, using whatever funds he still had from his wealthy, privileged upbringing and inheritances and trust funds etc. to start. Celebrities and "influencers" would be clamoring to throw their money at him or get their name attached to his.
Or would have been actually. Yes, it's all too late now for him to do anything good for anybody. Well, after he's convicted and all the hoopla has died down and he's settled quietly in his solitary cell, maybe then he'll have a chance to do some good. He'll have all the time in the world to sit and think, so maybe he can come up with some ideas then. No scaling high rises himself then, but he can put it all down on paper, and if the guards in the prison mail room don't steal his ideas, he can mail it all out to the world. So he still has a chance to make something happen!
/s mostly
