The death of UnitedHealthcare CEO of Brian Thompson, age 50, has sparked an intriguing course of events.
Brian Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the health insurance arm of the multinational health services and insurance company UnitedHealth Group. He was named to this position in April 2021.
On Wednesday, December 4th at 6:40 ET, Thompson was fatally shot in the back and leg in front of a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, a notoriously busy area in Manhattan of close proximity to Times Square and Central Park, mere moments before he was scheduled to speak at an investor conference later that day. Thompson had arrived on foot to that hotel. A half an hour after the initial shots, he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
CCTV footage depicts the shooter – dressed in all black, with a backpack – immediately fleeing the scene on foot. Officials state that later on he acquired an e-bike and rode to Central Park, where he was last seen. NewsNation reported some newly-found CCTV footage showing the shooter riding up Sixth Avenue into Central Park shortly after the murder.
The manhunt for the killer had remained ongoing for five days. As of Saturday, December 7th, the latest development on the shooter’s whereabouts was a backpack found in Central Park. MSNBC had reported that the backpack contained Monopoly money and a jacket. Despite this, authorities are said to be closing in on an arrest. At a Police Athletic League holiday party in Harlem this Saturday the 7th, Mayor Eric Adams told reporters, “The net is tightening.”
Though investigators have not deducted a clear motive behind the killing, they are focusing on a specific piece of information. The words ‘Deny’, ‘Defend’, and ‘Depose’ were written on Sharpie on the bullet casings recovered at the crime scene. Investigators found 2 connections with this piece of evidence. The first was that this was in reference to the “three D’s of insurance”, a phrase utilized by insurance critics. The terms are ‘Delay’, ‘Deny’, ‘Defend’, referring to when insurers frequently delay payment on healthcare claims, deny claims, and defend their actions. The other connection was a 2010 Insurance book published by Rutgers Law School Professor Jay Feinman titled ‘Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.’ The book has since risen to the number two spot on Amazon’s nonfiction best seller’s list. The book discusses prior authorization, which refers to insurance companies requiring doctors to prove a treatment is 100% necessary, and is cited as a ‘time-consuming process’ that can cause ‘dangerous delays’, according to journalist Alexander Stockton. Despite these correlations, NYPD investigators have yet to put together a clear message or motive.
This shooting death struck an intriguing nerve in the American people. The profound lack of sympathy and the blatant mockery of his death is bringing a shared hatred of American healthcare to the forefront.
But what lies at the heart of this resentment?
A Harvard study from 2009 showed that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40% higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts. They also found that 45,000 deaths are annually linked to lack of healthcare coverage. Insurance companies deny 1 in 5 claims. Why is that? It’s to serve their own bottom line. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the American healthcare industry is valued at a staggering $4.5 trillion. In 2022, UnitedHealth, the largest insurer in the United States, raked in a total of $17.7 billion in profits, with 20% of this funneled directly to enriched pockets of their top executives and shareholders. The company continues to rake in billions of dollars in profits each year, while the cost of healthcare most often increases. Healthcare spending represented 17.3% of the GDP in 2022 and is estimated to reach a rate of +19.3% by 2032. Yet, within the same breath, two-thirds of people (66.5%) who file for bankruptcy cite medical bill issues as a key contributor to their economic turmoil. An estimated 530,000 families reach bankruptcy due to medical bills solely. American citizens also pay about twice the healthcare cost than most countries per person.
Most importantly, 57% of Americans believe that healthcare is the federal government’s responsibility.
These guttural statistics just barely capture a fraction of the horrors of American healthcare.
The common and expected response in the time of someone passing is usually that of mourning, remorse, consideration. The American public’s reaction to this death couldn’t be farther from this. According to CNN, a Facebook post by UnitedHealth Group expressing condolences to the CEO’s family received over 57,000 laughing-face reactions. For the past week, multiple X posts with millions of likes praise the shooter as a hero. On Saturday December 7th, a lookalike contest for the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter was held in New York City.
Millions of Americans online are reveling in the death of the CEO. Under the tag ‘Deny, Defend, Depose’, users have begun to revere the shooter, dubbing him ‘The Adjuster’. Many have also taken time to share stories of losing loved ones due to denied insurance claims. TikTok user @/lacceeyy made a video detailing the loss of her father in a short 6 months partly due to complications in securing financial assistance from their health insurers. The video currently sits at 5 million views.
Is this rage justified? Is this mockery justified? Can murder ever truly be as a correct or necessary means to an end? Are the American people on the verge of reaching class consciousness? Why must Americans fight tooth and nail to secure the health services they need? Is violence the only way? These moral inquiries are spearheading online discourse.
In addition to public praise, this shooting has also sparked what many perceive as fear in healthcare executives. In early November, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield announced that it would be limiting the amount of time it covers anesthesia for the surgeries and treatments in which it is needed. This announced policy change sparked outcry and criticism across the medical industry, for example the American Society of Anesthesiologists. Many doctors criticized the policy decision to CNN sources. On Thursday, Janet Kiryluik, the staff vice president of corporate communications at Anthem’s parent company Everlance Health, told Forbes sources that the company would not be proceeding with the policy change. In similar news, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group was depicted reassuring employees, encouraging media avoidance, and detailing increased security protocols in the company in a leaked internal video, according to the New York Post.