After a month hiatus, John Oliver returned to Last Week Tonight with a look at United Healthcare, the largest insurance company in the US, which served over 50 million people last year. The company, part of the widely reviled private, for-profit health insurance industry in the US, was again under the microscope ahead of the sentencing of Luigi Mangione, who in August pleaded guilty to killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s in on 4 December 2024.
The shooting, outside a conference of health insurance executives in Manhattan, was “notably not met with universal sympathy”, Oliver recalled. “But it’s not just that Luigi was handsome. One reason many found it hard to completely condemn the murder is that so many Americans are furious with UnitedHealthcare.” Oliver cited a poll conducted shortly after the shooting, in which 69% of respondents in some part blamed denials for healthcare coverage by insurance companies for the killing.
