Callous as They Are, Celebrations of UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Murder Spark a Long Overdue Debate
“People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering.”
The reaction to the targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel early last Wednesday morning has been, to say the least, polarizing. Although Thompson, 50, was reportedly separated from his wife at the time of his murder, he leaves behind two children, a mother, two brothers, friends, and colleagues. His untimely death at the hands of a lone gunman is undeniably a tragedy.
However, a growing number of Americans have taken to social media to celebrate Thompson’s death, citing UnitedHealthcare’s record of denying healthcare claims. Former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz has been among the most vocal. Just hours after the incident, Lorenz shared an article on BlueSky about a health insurance company that “would no longer cover anesthesia for the full duration of certain surgeries.” She captioned it: “And people wonder why we want these executives dead.”
Later, she posted: “People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering. As someone against death and suffering, I think it’s good to call out this broken system and the people in power who enable it.”
Lorenz also reposted a controversial BlueSky post from another user, which read, “hypothetically, would it be considered an actionable threat to start emailing other insurance CEOs a simple ‘you’re next’? completely unrelated to current events btw.”
On Twitter, she amplified several similar sentiments from like-minded users, sparking a heated discussion about the ethics of such reactions and the broader implications of targeting corporate executives in public discourse.
He will be shown the same empathy he showed for others every single day 🫶 https://t.co/EqpB67rkP1
— Julia Marie (@julia_doubleday) December 4, 2024
My insurance will neither cover monoclonal antibodies to prevent COVID or sufficient Paxlovid to treat COVID. They have no problem with my suffering or possible death.
Murder is wrong, no matter how it's done. https://t.co/H3k0Mq3yrt— Amy Mitchell (@amymitchellart) December 4, 2024
"Every life is precious" stuff about a healthcare CEO whose company is noted for denying coverage is pretty silly
— Malcolm Harris (@BigMeanInternet) December 5, 2024
In response to the malevolence of the voices on social media and to an article published by the New Yorker titled The United Healthcare Shooting Was Inevitable, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) wrote on X: “The public execution of an innocent man and father of two is indefensible, not ‘inevitable.'” He was right.
No shortage of shitty takes on the 2024 election or on this assassination.
The public execution of an innocent man and father of two is indefensible, not “inevitable.”
Condoning and cheering this on says more about YOU than the situation of health insurance. pic.twitter.com/QGOcgai6TQ
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) December 7, 2024
Although the killer remains at large, bullet casings discovered at the crime scene were inscribed with the words “deny,” “depose,” and “defend,” a likely nod to the book Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It, gives us a clue to his motive.
#BREAKING: NYPD releases two new pictures of healthcare boss's assassin during his getaway in the back of a cabhttps://t.co/IGb6F2ZSrj #BrianThompson #UnitedHealthcare #BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/Ua4j6Kt1hu
— Video Forensics (@Video_Forensics) December 8, 2024
While the harsh and unyielding reactions to Thompson’s murder are troubling, this incident sheds light on the deep anger and frustration many Americans feel toward health insurers over denied claims and what they perceive as rampant corporate greed.
Earlier this year, I faced a similar frustration. I was scheduled for a painful dental procedure, only to be informed upon arrival that my insurance wouldn’t cover anesthesia. I was stunned. Although I paid out of pocket, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this expense should have been covered.
On another occasion, after my son’s nose was shattered in an ATV accident, our insurance company refused to cover corrective surgery. Determined to proceed anyway, I scheduled the surgery, and a nurse appealed the denial. Eventually, the insurer reversed its decision. This experience taught me that some companies deny claims initially, knowing many customers won’t fight back.
Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, I rarely thought about health insurance and seldom encountered issues. However, since its enactment in 2010, my premiums have risen sharply every year, even as deductibles increased and coverage diminished. Unfortunately, my experience is far from unique. In the X post below, entrepreneur and political activist Jeremy Kauffman provides a succinct explanation of the systemic problems exacerbated by Obamacare.
Obamacare attempted to turn health insurance into a social welfare program.
For something to be insurance, you have to be able to price risk.
Obamacare made pricing risk illegal, via the community rating system. An insurer can no longer individually estimate your health needs,… https://t.co/uVzBIMWuvk
— Jeremy Kauffman 🦔🌲🌕 (@jeremykauffman) December 5, 2024
People are reaching a breaking point. Alongside the exorbitant premiums Americans already pay, the denial of coverage has become an increasingly pressing issue for many.
While the murder of a health insurance CEO—or even ten—won’t solve the problem, Thompson’s killing has undeniably brought this crisis into the spotlight. Let’s hope that instead of further dividing Americans, this tragic event will ignite a much-needed debate and ultimately lead to meaningful change in Washington.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t consider himself a higher profile target with security. It only takes one particular person denied who is terminal with nothing to lose and a certain sense of poetic vigilante justice to have this happen.
Outside of LEO, who see the results, most people who haven’t been in a combat environment or worked in a really lawless 3rd world place don’t understand how vulnerable they actually are or how easy it is to do harm to them. I suspect that the various private security companies and the elite firms offering protective highly trained details are seeing a business bonanza in the aftermath.
I was surprised by that too.
Washington, DC is asshoe.
“and ultimately lead to meaningful change in Washington.”
Washington is the reason we’re where we are. Unless Washington gets tf out of running medicine, it’s just going to get worse.
Insurance is a frustrating thing, for example I queried with my health insurer for this thing (because like f88k I’m leaving my health in the hands of the NHS 😂) to be told that the thing I was after wasn’t covered but the thing that it stopped, if I came down with it was covered…which didn’t really make sense to me 🤔🤷♂️
Cause by the time you go the thing you wanted to stop quite literally the cost of treating that thing was several orders of magnitude higher than the initial outlay for the thing that would have prevented it! 🫣
Gotta get back to a free market and risk based price for health insurance without insane mandatory coverage and payments. Let everyone have an HSA to build a health care fund. Let folks get a high deductible catastrophic care plan if they choose. Heck end Medicaid, Obama Care and the tax deduction for employer provided benefits and use the savings to send every US Citizen a contribution to their HSA to buy the IN and health care they choose to pay for.
That would turn health care into a confusing mess. Time consuming for the intelligent. Deadly for the unintelligent.
Health insurance isn’t health care. What we call health insurance isn’t really insurance at this point it is a third party pays system. Third party pays systems always become a shit show government or otherwise.
It always ends up with inflation of prices and denial of services.
No, it would return us to the same sort of private insurance market we had as recently as 2008. The average US Citizen should be more than capable of finding and choosing a health insurance plan to fit their needs. I feel confident there would emerge all sorts of intermediaries to assist consumers, just as happens now with the various Medicare Plan add on options.
People select and purchase all sorts of other types of insurance today; auto, homeowners, renters. Then all the add on for those such as flood insurance or additional warranties on home appliances. Just as there are tax filing non profits to assist those in need there would emerge the same sort of thing for health insurance for the few who don’t trust themselves to make decisions and must rely upon others. The biggest difference would be fair risk based pricing which would simply plan selection and the HSA with govt funding a portion to assist every US Citizen.
“…turn health care into a confusing mess”
Hate to break it to you, sweetie, but it already is.
I already knew that, sweetie.
Include in that list what is essentially a mandate regarding Medicare as well.
Why should Social Security benefits be held hostage to participation in Medicare?
People are evil glad someone murdered.
Careful with celebrating murder, it is the same as supporting abortion and genocide.
You want a dictator? This is the path to follow.
Prior to Obamacare, we always had excellent health insurance at no cost through our modest middle class jobs (teacher + university staff) that covered everything we needed it for, including cardiac surgery and an extended ICU stay.
Now, it would take $1000 a month plus high copays to come close to that level of coverage. Government ALWAYS screws up what it seeks to regulate. State-run high-risk pools and catastrophic policies were a reasonable response to individuals who couldn’t get coverage otherwise; swept away in the obamacare nightmare.
“we always had excellent health insurance at no cost through our modest middle class jobs”
But even that is because government warped that market, too.
Back in the day, people paid for their own medical bills and health insurance (if they had any), and it was priced reasonably because you can’t succeed in an industry if your product is priced beyond what your market can afford.
When FDR froze wages, competitive companies could no longer hire the best talent. But they realized that FDR hadn’t frozen bennies, so they larded them into their hiring packages. Furthermore, insurance bennies didn’t count as income, so they weren’t subject to income tax or FICA withholding. As a result, corporations became employees’ de-facto source of health insurance.
This wasn’t the first time the fedguv interfered in the health care market to the detriment of your economic health (such as its crushing of affordable fraternal societies), and Obamacare won’t be the last.
Yep. The favorable tax treatment of benefits has absolutely contributed to the mess of health insurance. End it and level the field for everyone with HSA and consumer choice to buy the health insurance to match their own risk profile.
Do you or your children/grandchildren have HSAs? If not, why not?
“match their own risk profile”. Do you have a crystal ball? Nobody knows their risks until the doctor finds the tumor.
The comments sound like a bunch of old farts with Medicare (like me) telling those without to suck it up.
It is however, surprising to see that so many people are ok with Murder if they think someone is evil.
Be glad that most people don’t believe the same.
Agreed. I am sick about how many pro-Trump blogs are applauding this as a justified assassination, because it is anti-Big Pharma, and the globalists billionaire elites should start fearing the same fate. Disgusting.
Taylor Lorenz. Quite a pro-Trumper. Almost as much as some others riding their high horse.
Better to just agree, but some people cannot help themselves from manifesting the hate, especially when uncalled for. True and unfiltered TDS!
Post a link, JR. Just one will do, dipshit.
He won’t. He’s a hit and run troll.
Jeremy Kauffman is much too kind when he wrote “Obamacare attempted to turn health insurance into a social welfare program.” I suppose you could put it that way, but it’s obfuscating the reality.
Obama’s team sees the UK’s system as a model; the Left’s goal was and is some form of rationed, goverment run universal healthcare. The damage caused by Obamacare is part of the means to that end.
The intention was to wreck what was left of free enterprise in medical care and to make people dissatisfied and angry at the shambolic remains. The maniacs on BlueSky demonstrate that demonizing the “free market in health care” is working.
Making people miserable while wrecking an essential part of civilized life is a standard revolutionary tactic; think Cloward-Piven. It is supposed to lead to a demand for government control. Or violence which will neccesitate government control.
Meanwhile, the revolutionaries believe that their takeover of the country’s administrative and educational apparatus was a fait accompli. The current rage is that of a predator disturbed over its kill.
Come the Revolution, the extremely wealthy and high government officials will have options, mid ranking apparatchiki will have it better than the hoi polloi. Other than that, today’s VA and Medicare will look like the good old days.
In reality, UnitedHealthCare, like BlueCross/BlueShield before it, is rapidly becoming an arm of the state. Congress votes money, the administrative state makes the rules, and “free enterprise” follows the rules and allocates the money. It’s not government death panels that denied you health care, it’s big corporations.
They make their profit by allegedly being more efficient than the state, and earn it in part by standing between angry
citzenssubjects and their rulers.Whether this murder is in fact a political assassination or has a more personal motive, the landscape remains the same.
Health insurance can’t be reformed without addressing high health care costs.
Neither can be done by anyone who is owned by the industries (i.e. all of our politicians). I have some hope Trump can do it. If they allow him to live.
No excuses for murder. We are on a slippery slope to making evil banal. A theme explored by Viktor Frankl, a Nazi death camp survivor.
“The sadistic tendencies of the guards were not as pronounced as one might expect. They were, rather, ordinary men who had been transformed into ‘S.S. men’ through a process of gradual dehumanization.”
All this talk about the CEO deserving what he got only promotes more dehumanization.
All that being said I have questions as to what happened. How did the assassin know when and where the CEO was to be found? Alone on the streets of Manhattan at 6:40 am. Where was his body guard? He had one. This suggests the shooter had help and inside information. I see a professional hit job. The execution was flawless. He got away clean. The clues are distractions. The face photos all look different to me. The gun has not been recovered. There are numerous opinions as what gun was used. Evidently a compact silenced bolt action pistol.
My fear. NYPD and FBI desperate to solve this case, and will find a patsy and frame him. This is NYC, the most corrupt big city in America. Don’t trust anything coming from NYPD. Or FBI. I grew up, lived, and worked in NYC and know the place well. Fortunately I’m long gone from there.
Medicine is too expensive having been driven up by the government and the doctor’s expectations of high income. I have friends who are doctors, and they complain about not making enough money. “We had dreams in medical school.” A direct quote to me personally. Big pharma is worse. I once worked in the industry. We need a whole lot of reform.
Bigger picture of this murder of a ‘capitalist’ going back to President McKinley assassinated, up to VI Lenin to Gramsci to Stalin to Mao and even to Alinsky. The means and their ends are justified in this warped social justice revolution.
Regarding the high cost of ACA for everyone outside of a low income band. It may not be as simple as you think. But who knows whether an article about the ACA in USNews is credible or not.
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/policy-dose/articles/2017-05-30/republicans-raised-your-health-care-premiums-not-obamacare
That’s BS. It’s the general framework of BarkyCare that destroyed everything. And that’s all besides the fact that everything about BarkyCare is totally un-Constitutional and as un-American as anything can be.
But leftists are looking to blame everyone else for their destruction. Next thing you’ll pull up an articvle from usnews that talks about how Republicans forced EVs on the industry and opened the border …Wait! THey ran the “Republicans opened the border” lie during the campaign when they tried to actually blame Trump for the millions invading America at the invite of Traitor Joe and the dems.
Intended as a pathway to Nationalization.
“For your Safety.”
So, you have no argument.
Didn’t bother to read the article, so I’ll not comment on it, other than to note it was written after Trump became president, therefore well AFTER Obamacare was passed and became the law of the land. I’m so old I actually remember that (nearly all) Republicans voted against Obamacare but it was passed anyway, and in the following year(s) all the things that they warned about came to pass–premiums and deductibles rose DRASTICALLY (even with subsidies), people were forced off of insurance plans that they preferred because those plans didn’t meet the requirements of the ACA and were therefore discontinued, various insurance companies merged or moved out of various markets and people could no longer use their preferred health care providers and doctors, etc. I will admit that I was angered that nothing was done to correct those problems during Trump’s first two years, but trying to lay the blame for these failures at the feet of Republicans is a rewriting of history that I am not willing to stomach.
So, you prefer remaining ignorant.
I don’t like health insurance companies either, but they are not the problem. They are reacting to a regulatory environment that leaves little room to maneuver. Finding creative ways to deny claims is how they fight back. Until the actual cost and availability of healthcare is cured by a free market, this will just continue.
BarkyCare is the main problem. It is un-Constitutional crap (that Benedict Roberts should burn in hell forever for having supported it in the most insane and ridiculous SCOTUS opinion EVER) that took everything American out of the health insurance industry and left us with some expensive, useless monstrosity that only an America-hating, lunatic , or an anti-Western, third-world Indonesian, could love.
Barky and the treasonous, lowlife democrats are wholly responsible for the destruction of our health care/health insurance sectors. They are all responsible, not least of which the back-stabbing faux “anti-abortion” dems of Bart Stupid’s gang who were as much shills for Barky’s national socialized health care as anyone. And none of them have even suffered any part of the massive destruction they have caused this nation.
And if that’s not enough we can get into the destruction and insanity the same exact people have been causing with their ridiculous global warming hoax …
30+ years ago when I was young and unmarried I didn’t have health insurance. I got married and it became prudent to have insurance. I wasn’t making great money so I chose a Blue Cross hospitalization policy. It didn’t cost much but it covered hospital care to a pretty large dollar amount included pregnancy and delivery services.
It was very inexpensive but it accomplished 2 things large risk mitigation and made me an insured so if I developed something that would otherwise have prevented me or my wife from getting insurance due to preexisting conditions.
Exactly. You buy insurance to mitigate YOUR risk, not the risks of everyone else. Some obese person has a worse risk profile than a person at a healthy weight. Just as teenage/young adult male pays higher auto IN due to the tendency of that population subset to engage in high risk behavior (I did all sorts of dumbass things back then with other guys my age) an obese person should pay higher health insurance rates; diabetes, stroke, heart attack, organ failure are just some of the increased risks.
No one should be paying IN costs for risks they don’t engage in or ain’t applicable to them. If they choose to add a rider to cover costs of pregnancy and child birth they can do so but a comprehensive catastrophic care policy with a $5K deductible would also cover what may be an extraordinary event, especially when combined with an HSA built up over time and a gov’t contribution to every US Citizen’s HSA account annually. Worry warts can buy all the additional IN to cover whatever they fear, even if unreasonable fears but the rest of us should not subsidize that via higher cost for standard IN.
It is long past time that the government admit that the Affordable (HAH!) Care Act was a mistake and scrap it. Then after that the only real meddling they need to do is anti-fraud measures, both for the insurers and those who try to milk the system. Fingers crossed that at least the first part finally happens during Trump’s second term.
Your increased premiums under Obama Care goes to subsidizing those who pay zero to $100 per
month. Also illegals are covered using your premiums and tax dollars. Your insurance as a woman covers maternity care even if you have no ability to have children. Where does that money go? To cover births at hospitals of illegal children. Yes there needs to be a discussion and that discussion is how do we sunset Obama Care!
People are mad about the guy in charge of the ‘death panel’ that they said weren’t going to happen?
Shocking.
There is no actual cost of healthcare. The amount billed is often ten times the amount paid.
Last year my wife had a minor stoke – fully recovered – and the hospital facility charges for a week, with 2 days in ICU, was about $150K. Medicare cut it to about $30K and paid all but a small amount.
Yep. Years ago my wife had a procedure to examine her stomach for ulcers. Out patient, light anesthesia maybe an hour. Billed $9,500. Accepted approx 900 as Insurance allowable, we got maybe 300 of it. Scam to write off the “loss.” Of course the 9500 is what’s always cited for high medical costs.
No.
The murder of a man who works for a health insurance company will not prompt me to have a discussion about the current state of healthcare or why claims are denied.
Exactly. But check the Pro-Trump blogs all over the Internet and you will see way too many Trump supporters applauding this assassination.
It’s not just “pro-Trump” blogs doing this, idiot. Almost to a T Leftists are the ones landing this heinous act and they’re even celebrating it.
Trump is now president. You can stop being a NeverTrump idiot.
No JR can’t. It’s baked into his version of reality.
Weird how you don’t provide a single link then, huh?
Thank you for stating this very clearly and simply, this is an embarrassment for this website and the writer.
Public Service Announcement Announcement: In conjunction with the government, UnitedHealthGroup (the victim’s employer) is a major sponsor of Medicare Part C plans, otherwise known as Medicare Advantage plans. There is TV advertising like crazy to sign up people at this time of year – the open enrollment period. On TV, they tell you about all the extra benefits you can get versus staying in traditional Medicare. What they don’t tell you is that the “price” you pay for those benefits is having a “gatekeeper” that may stand in the way of certain treatments or diagnostic testing. Traditional Medicare has no such gatekeepers and no fancy extra benefits. Anyone who is elderly or has elderly parents should think long and hard about switching to a Medicare Advantage plan from traditional Medicare. (Some people may not have a choice, as they may not have the resources to buy Medicare Supplement insurance to cover what Medicare does not fully pay – primarily the 20% of Medicare Part B, doctors and diagnostic costs.)
Well said. When I was 64 and began evaluating my choices for Medicare coverage, I had to make a choice between traditional Medicare and Part C.
I wanted my choice of doctors, (my primary doctor has the best rolodex of specialists ever), no hassles or gate keepers and the ability to choose where I wanted things done. It costs me about $350 a month to pay for this choice but it has paid of time after time.
Very sad. Let us hope that Thompson’s unvested stock options vest immediately upon death and that his beneficiaries are granted an extended period in which to exercise them.
“Whoever sheds man’s blood,*
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man.”
Genesis 6:9 NKJV
*i.e. back-shooting cowards, not executives of companies you think have wronged you!
When you find your Venn diagram overlapping with Taylor Lorenz you need to stop. If the feeling persists, stick a steak knife under a fingernail until it does.
No, there is no justification for this @$$ination at all. Are we going to just chuck decorum out the window and blast everyone we are aggrieved by?
If you want to blame someone, blame Barack Obama. He’s the one that sold a thousand page, we have to pass it to find out what’s in it, monstrosity called Obamacare.
He’s the one that deserves your wrath.
And the RINO’s who refused to vote against it. Repeal Obamacare!
McCain torpedoed the prior attempt.
IMO, real reform will take blowing up the existing system of tax policy, subsidies and govt programs. Then keep things simple. Allow everyone to have an HSA regardless of benefits. Let consumers choose high deductible plans, catastrophic care plans or a plan with no deductible and coverage for everything under the sun. Require transparent pricing of everything to do with healthcare; physician fees, hospital procedures, labs everything so that consumers can choose. Gonna need to expand use of Physician Assistant and Nurse Practitioners for basic primary care. Must stop the mandatory coverage for all but the very basics so that a generally healthy person can buy a standard policy and know they are insured v risk while not requiring folks to pay premiums for cosmetic/elective care or make us subsidize birth control/pregnancy if that’s not our risk profile.
Without explicitly saying they’ve have positively identified a suspect, Mayor Adams certainly implied that to reporters last night. It’s unclear if Adams is just trying to make NYPD seem more competent than they are or if he really knows something that’s not yet known publicly. Given the quality of evidence they already have that’s already in the public domain, it would be surprising they don’t have his name by now.
Everyone demonizes health insurers for not paying claims yet harbor no such ill will against doctors and the rest of the professionals in the health care and pharma industries for not working for free.
It’s the same thing. If you don’t want to foot the bill for your healthcare then someone else has to pay for it.
So we either go for a free market system where each person makes their own risk decisions and has the ability to purchase insurance from a menu (or not at all) or a full-blown socialized medicine system. Either one is better than the hybrid bastard we have right now which only benefits the rich and the politically powerful.
When the Republicans had a chance to define our national healthcare in the Bush era, they were happy to take the insurance company’s money and allow insurance companies to use “pre-existing conditions” and one million dollar lifetime caps. Obamacare allows the 60 million people who have pre-existing conditions to buy a normal policy. Instead of providing just healthcare, Obama threw in all the social engineering, ruining a move to providing healthcare to people other than the healthy middle and upper class.
The insurance carriers cover what they contract with the company that hires them and employs the patient. If they aren’t then it’s breach of contract.
Go after your companies HR director
With that headline Elizabeth s., you’re as bad as the hateful lefties who wouldn’t mind guillotining any they seem to be bad. Go write for mediate
I’ve never felt inspired to comment on any articles on here before, but this is a real low for this website.
Should an assassination prompt a discussion on the misdeeds of the victim of the assassination? If you’re a Maoist Red Brigades member or physically repulsive Antifa mouth-breather, maybe you think it should. However, anyone else with an IQ above room temperature should realize doing so incentivizes more assassinations.
American health care is an incredibly complex system with a lot of waste, corruption, abuse, unnecessary services, heavy regulation, profiteers and bad actors. Only a dolt would single out health care CEOs as the primary bad actors when there are so many perverse incentives and wastefulness beyond their control.