When the CEO of one of the largest medical insurance companies in the United States was gunned down on the street in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, his death quickly turned into a larger conversation about the much-reviled industry in which he worked.
Brian Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, had been in New York City for a conference when he was killed in what police believe was a targeted shooting.
Among hundreds of posts on social media about the shocking murder, many people were moved to talk about the injustice of the health insurance industry. Often the dark jokes on X, Instagram, Reddit and TikTok spoke to how cruel medical insurance companies can be to their customers. Some even wrote folk songs about the event.
“The bullet hit the CEO outside of his allotted benefit window, so he’s not eligible for emergency treatment,” wrote one person on X in response to a post about the killing.
One Reddit user posted: “A man is dead, and no one really cares. Huh. Sounds like business as usual for United Health isn’t it?”
An announcement on the Facebook page of UnitedHealthcare announcing Thompson’s death had 42,000 laugh emoji reactions by Thursday afternoon.
Others shared personal stories about how the health insurance industry had denied coverage to their loved ones or laden them with debt.
“His company put multiple of my family members in debt they will be paying for the rest of their lives & denied care for my uncle which led to his death. Brian Thompson killed people. Full stop,” wrote one person.
“Remembering the day United Healthcare denied a one-night hospital stay for my 12yo child as ‘medically unnecessary’ following ASD heart repair surgery,” wrote another.
The response has echoes of the celebrations over the death of Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, whom many around the world held responsible for bombing campaigns in Cambodia that killed hundreds of thousands of people. When he died in November 2023, social media was similarly flooded with memes celebrating his passing.
Distasteful though they may be, the reactions to Thompson’s murder have revealed a deep anger among many Americans about the unfairness of the US health insurance industry. And among those speaking out were doctors, professors, politicians and people who’d suffered their own insurance denials.
“Currently, over 1,000 people go bankrupt daily, solely due to personal medical bills. Anyone who can make millions of dollars overseeing a system like this, and sleep well at night doesn’t deserve my sympathy,” Beau Forte, a former Green Party candidate for Congress in New Jersey who ran on a platform calling for universal healthcare, told The Independent.
Forte, who ran for office because his father was unable to receive care from his medical insurance provider after suffering a series of illnesses, was among hundreds who posted viral tweets excoriating Thompson after his death.
“How is it appropriate to ask me if I feel bad about the person in charge of the biggest company that allows this to happen? Apologies if that seems harsh, but that’s where I stand,” he added.
After watching my father decide to basically refuse care and commit suicide instead of watching health insurance companies pick his bones dry while he was still alive is something I'll never forget.
— Beau Forte (@Beau4Congress) December 4, 2024
Democrats who praise Brian Thompson don't deserve your vote EVER AGAIN. https://t.co/YsOc2egp5N
Forte was not alone.
“Today, we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down.... wait, I’m sorry – today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires,” wrote a professor at Columbia University in a post that garnered 3.5 million views.
The reaction comes amid growing complaints from consumers about rising healthcare costs, denial of coverage and high deductibles.
UnitedHealthcare itself had faced scrutiny over denying claims to its customers. A Senate committee concluded earlier this year that three major companies – UnitedHealthcare, Humana and CVS, which owns Aetna – were intentionally denying claims for nursing care to patients to increase profits.
The company was also accused in a lawsuit of using a faulty AI algorithm to deny elderly patients extended care.
Data on how many medical insurance claims are denied is notoriously hard to come by, despite attempts by the government to make the process more transparent.
The Affordable Care Act, a sweeping healthcare law passed by Barack Obama in 2010, was designed in part to prevent spurious claim denials by insurance companies and was tasked with monitoring them. It has largely failed in that effort, and evidence suggests denials are on the rise.
A study by the independent health policy research firm KFF published last year found that insurance companies denied some 17 per cent of claims from patients in 2021, even when they received care from in-network physicians. It also found that less than one per cent of consumers appealed those denials, and among those who did, insurers upheld their decision nearly 60 per cent of the time. A ProPublica investigation released last year similarly found that insurers deny between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the claims they receive, according to the limited government data available.
Those numbers obscure the many horror stories of people who suffer from ill health or die after being denied the care they need from insurers. News stories about people who died after their insurance company refused to pay for treatment are a routine sight in American media.
Even those who receive treatment and survive are often faced with massive debt due to high deductibles. Today, an estimated 100 million people in America face some kind of medical debt.
Timothy Faust, a healthcare writer and author of the book Health Justice Now, told The Independent that many Americans see medical insurance companies as the primary cause of injustice within the healthcare system.
“Health insurance companies ultimately determine, through scandal-laden cost-cutting processes, which care you are eligible to receive and to what extent it will bankrupt your family, and are understandably the entities we most associate with the injustices of American healthcare,” he said.
“From talking to people across the country, I know how many Americans feel the consequences of this arrangement within their bodies. We have watched our loved ones suffer and die from preventable or treatable illnesses that hospitals charge too much for and insurers refuse to pay. I think a lot of latent rage generates through witnessing this depravity over and over and over again,” Faust added.
None of those issues were exclusive to UnitedHealthcare, however.
Thompson worked for UnitedHealthcare’s parent company for some 20 years before taking over at the insurance subsidiary in 2021. The company provides insurance coverage for some 49 million Americans and brought in $281 billion in revenue last year.
His role as the CEO gave him immense power over the lives of millions, most of whom likely didn’t know his name until his death.
The precise motives of the killer are not yet known, but police were given a major clue after revealing that the words “deny,” “depose,” and “defend” were carved into the live rounds and shell casings found outside the Hilton hotel on Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, where Thompson was gunned down.
The three words bear a striking resemblance to the title of Jay Feinman’s book Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.
“Today the name of the game is delay, deny, defend: to improve their profits, insurance companies delay payment of justified claims, deny payment altogether, and defend their actions by forcing claimants to enter litigation,” the book’s blurb reads.
— Additional reporting by Justin Rohrlich
