The murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO exposed widespread anger at a broken system
Brian Thompson, the 50-year-old CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed Wednesday morning in an incident reported to police. is described as a “targeted, pre-planned and premeditated attack”. The crime caused widespread shock and condemnation. But it also revealed—in a sometimes brutal way—Americans’ deep anger at their weak health care system. Journalist: “Jokes about United’s CEO aren’t really about him” Ken Klippenstein wrote on his Substack. “They are about the brutal health care system that he personified and that Americans find deeply painful and humiliating.”
Before he was killed, Thompson, who is said to be under investigation by the Department of Justice for possible insider trading, apparently received threats. “I just know that he said some people threatened him,” his wife said. speak NBC News. “Basically, I don’t know, lack of coverage? I don’t know the details.” This action was widely condemned by officials, from Democratic senators. Amy Klobuchar to the Republican senator Rick Scott. But in the 48 hours since Thompson’s murder, social media has been filled with ridicule and disdain for both Thompson and the entire industry he represented. When UnitedHealth Group posted the news of Thompson’s death on Facebook on Wednesday, the majority of reactions, more than 76,000 and growing, were laughing and crying emojis.
“Watched mainstream news about the murder of the United Healthcare CEO on TikTok and I thought political and industry leaders might want to read the comments and think twice about them,” political strategist Tobita Chow wrote on Xshared some screenshots of reactions on TikTok. They included a series of jokes about health insurance terms like “prior authorization,” complaints about substandard coverage, and the observation that thousands of people responded with similar disdain. on one’s own.
However tactless as they may be, these reactions have led to anger, shared by many Americans, at the state of the health insurance industry. UnitedHealthcare—the largest health insurance company of market share– was embroiled in a series high-class no payment And Insurance denied scandals. No one knows exactly how often private insurers deny claims, but September 2023 survey by health policy group KFF found that nearly one in five insured adults had their claims denied by insurers in the US in the previous 12 months.
In particular, UnitedHealthcare is said to have used computer algorithms to automatic refusal of restorative care to vulnerable seniors in Medicare Advantage plans, a practice the company is implementing sued in a class action lawsuit. Earlier this year, a Senate committee also found that UnitedHealthcare (as well as Humana and CVS, owner of Aetna) have restricted access to post-acute care for Medicare Advantage patients at a much higher rate than for other types of care. (A spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group was speak the class action lawsuit is “meritless” and claims that the denial is simply based on coverage criteria and the terms of the insurance plan. As for the Senate report, the company spokesperson also declared that it “mischaracterizes our Medicare Advantage program and clinical practices” while ignoring “criteria that require greater scrutiny of post-acute care.”)
Meanwhile, the company’s revenue soared to $372 billion last year. It was Thompson who brought it home 10.2 million USD in last year’s compensation, a notable figure was predicted to go viral on social media. Perhaps unsurprisingly, public opinion polling shows that Americans generally dislike the insurance industry: Gallup poll 2023Just 5% of respondents described insurers’ service as “excellent,” and 20% said costs caused them to delay treatment for a serious medical condition.
That might explain why some Americans are rather literally celebration killing. On Wikipedia, editors locked pages about Thompson and his death after users changed them to describe the executive as “parasites” and a “scammer” who is “now burning in hell.” “It is truly touching that the one thing that can unite our divided and fragmented country is celebrating the assassination of a health insurance executive,” posted David Austin Walsh, a historian at the University of Virginia. “Anyway, try to live your life in such a way that if you were murdered the entire Internet wouldn’t think it would happen to you.”
