The fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has prompted healthcare executives to say they will address growing frustrations among Americans struggling with access to and costs of medical care.
Speaking at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York, Amazon Pharmacy chief medical officer Vin Gupta acknowledged the systemic issues fueling public anger. “Our health system needs to be better (…) There’s a lot of things that should cause a lot of outrage,” he said.
However, he cautioned against normalizing violence, adding, “It’s also true that that [killing] should not have happened. There cannot be this false moral equivalence in our discourse.”
Pfizer’s chief sustainability officer Caroline Roan echoed Gupta’s sentiments, describing Thompson’s death as “a tragedy of epic proportions.” She emphasized the need for a discussion about patient experiences and systemic change, stating, “Clearly there’s a larger dialogue that needs to happen, and we’re going to be taking our time to try to understand exactly what happened and understand that feedback, and see where we can play a positive role.”
Thompson, 50, was fatally shot on December 4 while en route to speak at UnitedHealth Group’s investor conference in Manhattan. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch reported that Thompson was struck in the back and leg.
Authorities arrested 26-year-old Luigi Mangione on Monday, charging him with second-degree murder. A manifesto found with Mangione suggested his actions were fueled by anger toward the health insurance industry, describing executives as “parasites.”
“Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming,” he said. “A reminder: the U.S. has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy.
“United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the U.S. by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but [h]as our life expectancy?” he added.
“No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.”
As news of Mangione’s arrest spread, some social media users praised him, with the hashtag #FreeLuigiMangione gaining traction. One post on X, formerly Twitter, described him as “an Italian American hero,” saying, “He started the war on greedy, subhuman insurance CEOs is what he did. And in this house, Luigi Mangione is an Italian American hero, END OF STORY!”
Others saw the shooting as an opportunity to fuel discourse about healthcare policy. “Awful news about that murder, but at least it’s fueling a discourse on social media that will surely change a lot of minds on healthcare policy,” one post read.
In response to the tragedy, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty acknowledged public frustrations in an op-ed for The New York Times, admitting that “the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people’s frustrations with it. No one would design a system like the one we have. And no one did. It’s a patchwork built over decades.”
He stressed that Thompson’s work aimed to make healthcare more affordable and compassionate, a legacy the company pledges to uphold. “The ideas he advocated were aimed at making healthcare more affordable, more transparent, more intuitive, more compassionate—and more human,” Witty added.
“That’s Brian’s legacy, one that we will carry forward by continuing our work to make the health system work better for everyone.”
Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies, including the NYPD, have expressed concern about online posts encouraging further violence against healthcare executives. A bulletin warned of potential risks to industry leaders and noted heightened security measures being implemented at insurance company headquarters, with some healthcare companies closing headquarters, or scrubbing their websites of top executives’ photographs and increasing armed security details for key leaders, according to CNN.
“Both prior to and after the suspected perpetrator’s identification and arrest, some online users across social media platforms reacted positively to the killing, encouraged future targeting of similar executives, and shared conspiracy theories regarding the shooting,” the NYPD bulletin stated.
Despite public anger over the healthcare system, Gupta emphasized the importance of collective action to address these issues without resorting to violence.
“Last week was horrifically shocking,” he said. “Are there going to be copycats? That is unacceptable. We need people to speak out that false moral equivalences must not be accepted. We should be also be focused on the bigger goal which is that we can do something better here together.”
In the first quarter of 2024, 27.1 million people in the U.S. were uninsured, amounting to around 8 percent of the population, according to data from the National Health Interview Survey. That is 1.5 percentage points lower than the uninsured rate for 2020.
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