The suspect within the homicide of UnitedHealth Group UNH.N government Brian Thompson was not a buyer of the well being insurer, an organization spokesperson stated on Friday.
Ivy League-educated Luigi Mangione was charged with homicide on Dec. 9 for the killing of Thompson outdoors a Manhattan lodge earlier than an organization convention, following a five-day manhunt.
Mangione suffered from power again ache that affected his each day life, based on associates and social media posts, although it’s unclear whether or not his private well being performed a task within the capturing.
UnitedHealth doesn’t have prior data for both Mangione or his mom, the spokesperson stated.
Thompson’s homicide was met with shock throughout the business, in addition to an outpouring of anger from People combating healthcare prices and the complexities of U.S. medical insurance. Public officers and healthcare executives have acknowledged the frustrations, however in the previous couple of days have been extra vocal in pushing again towards social media glorification of an accused killer.
In a New York Instances opinion piece on Friday, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty stated he understood public frustrations with the “flawed” U.S. healthcare system, however mourned Thompson’s killing and decried the “vitriol that has been directed at our colleagues who’ve been barraged by threats.” Thompson was CEO of the corporate’s massive medical insurance enterprise.
The New York Instances reported that an inner New York Metropolis police report analyzing Mangione’s writings concluded that he seen the killing as a justified response to what he believed to be corruption within the healthcare business.
In some circles, Mangione has been celebrated and greater than a thousand donations have poured into a web-based fundraiser for his authorized protection.
“It’s representing a widespread anger that’s felt by folks within the center class, within the working class and people who find themselves well-to-do who even have bother with their insurance coverage firm,” stated Pepper Culpepper, a professor of presidency and public coverage at Oxford College.
ABC Information and others reported on Friday {that a} Florida girl was arrested after she allegedly ended a telephone name with a consultant from her insurer Blue Cross Blue Protect by saying the phrases “Delay, deny, depose. You individuals are subsequent.”
The phrases “deny,” “defend” and “depose” had been carved into shell casings discovered on the Thompson homicide scene, a number of information retailers reported, evoking the title of a guide essential of the insurance coverage business revealed in 2010 titled “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance coverage Firms Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”
‘INTENSELY PERSONAL AND VERY COMPLICATED’
“Well being care is each intensely private and really sophisticated, and the explanations behind protection choices usually are not nicely understood,” Witty wrote in his first public feedback for the reason that homicide, noting that the U.S. healthcare system is a patchwork constructed over many years.
“We share among the accountability for that. Along with employers, governments and others who pay for care, we have to enhance how we clarify what insurance coverage covers and the way choices are made,” he wrote.
Medical insurance corporations have come beneath sharp public scrutiny since Thompson’s Dec. 4 homicide, and shares of UnitedHealth alone have fallen practically 15%.
It isn’t clear if the current occasions “symbolize a watershed second” that might catalyze change within the business, stated Morningstar analyst Julie Utterback. “You possibly can positively really feel the potential for some sort of change within the air.”
The healthcare sector has reassessed safety measures on account of an uptick in violent crime the final 18 months, Reuters reported, with UnitedHealth and rivals CVS Well being CVS.N and Cigna CI.N eradicating photographs of their management from their web sites following the capturing.
As an alternative of boosting safety for executives, insurers ought to handle public notion of their providers, stated Culpepper, including that many People consider huge well being insurers refuse to cowl wanted care in an effort to bolster income.
“This type of ambient discontent round medical insurance in the US won’t go away till it begins to be addressed.”
