Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke about the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson which occurred last week, condemning the violence while simultaneously noting the insurance company policies that motivated it.
"The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told HuffPost in an interview on Tuesday.
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," Warren added. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
Her response is closely aligned with the response provided by Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders referred to the murder as "outrageous" and "unacceptable", but indicated that negative feelings towards healthcare CEOs or health insurance companies at large was entirely justified.
"I think what the outpouring of anger at the health care industry tells us is that millions of people understand that health care is a human right and that you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed health care for people while they make billions of dollars in profit," Sanders said.
On Monday, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was arrested as a person of interest in the homicide, and later charged with the murder of Thompson. Many have taken to social media, not just to condemn Thompson for the healthcare difficulties many Americans faced at the behest of UHC and express happiness at the news of his death, but to revere Mangione, around who a fanbase has formed, and praise his actions.
"The number of people I personally hear from, both in my official capacity and as somebody who stops and talks to people in the grocery store about how hard it is to get medical care that people have paid their insurance companies for over and over and over, is a reminder that this system is just broken," Warren continued.
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