Progressive lawmakers joined their colleagues on Capitol Hill to condemn Luigi Mangione's killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but also censured insurance companies for their use of "vile" tactics designed to maximize profits — tactics that have caused many people who suffered at their hands to celebrate Thompson's death as an act of justice.
“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 when asked about the disdainful response to Thompson's death.
“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.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the killing "outrageous" and "unacceptable" but, like Warren, criticized the system that UnitedHealthcare represents.
“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.
Sanders and Warren have both advocated for a single-payer health system similar to ones adopted in other countries, including Sanders' Medicare for All proposal that would guarantee the right "for Americans to go see a doctor when they're sick" and "not go bankrupt after staying in a hospital." In wake of the shooting, people have been sharing stories of themselves, their family members and others suffering from life-threatening health conditions and financial ruin due to companies denying coverage.
"The sickness of capitalism is that if you kill a person with paperwork, it simply doesn't count," said one user on social media, referring to the tens of thousands of people who die each year from treatable and preventable conditions because of denied coverage. Others pointed out that Thompson himself was responsible for UnitedHealthcare policies to deny payment for what it deemed "non-critical" visits to emergency rooms; the company has also used artificial intelligence to automate claim denials and Thompson was one of the targets in a lawsuit for insider trading and fraud.
"I think for people who are surprised, it's a wake-up call for how much of this exists in our society," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told Business Insider. "Of course, we don't want to see the chaos that vigilantism presents, we also don't want to see the extreme suffering that millions of Americans confront when your life changes overnight from a horrific diagnosis," she added.
