The murder of Brian Thompson sparked outrage against the health care system

The murder seemed so well planned that at first glance many thought it was a professional hit.

The gunman who shot and killed Brian Thompson, head of one of the nation’s largest health insurers, before dawn on a New York street lay in wait with a silenced weapon, kept his cool as his gun jammed, then deftly maneuvered escape. to ensure that his victim was fatally wounded.

Within hours, however, an intensive police manhunt uncovered a trail of clues and possible errors, suggesting that although the killer had taken care to cover his tracks, he also committed amateurish missteps that would still lead to his identification and arrest. can lead.

But millions of Americans were less interested in the mechanics of what New York’s new police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, called “a premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack” than in the possible motive. Despite the fact that the killer’s motive remains completely unknown, the death of the UnitedHealthcare CEO sparked an outpouring of anger from those mistreated or untreated by the US’s predatory medical industry and even grim gloating from some over the death from Thompson.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical debt, with many of them losing their homes. Thousands die because insurance companies find reasons not to pay for treatment, including UnitedHealthcare, which denies about a third of claims.

Anthony Zenkus, lecturer at the Columbia School of Social Work, spoke on behalf of many in a message on X.

“Today we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, shot… wait, I’m sorry – today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who die needlessly every year to make insurance company executives like Brian Thompson multi-millionaires” , he wrote.

The revelation that shell casings at the scene were marked with the words “deny” and “defend” and “impeach” heightened speculation that the killer had waged a vendetta against UnitedHealthcare, which earned $280 billion in revenue last year by treating about 50 million people. insurance. people in the US. Two of these words are used by the industry in policy documents and are included in the title of a 2010 book, Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.

Thompson was in New York from UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters in Minnesota for an investor conference. The 50-year-old father of two was appointed CEO of the company in 2021 and was paid $10 million last year after overseeing a sharp increase in profits to $16 billion that some critics say stemmed from the use of artificial intelligence to routinely deny claims.

His killer appears to be well aware of Thompson’s movements. The attacker apparently knew when his victim was likely to arrive at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel near Central Park and which entrance he would use.

Surveillance footage captured the gunman outside the hotel around 6:30 a.m., wearing a dark hooded jacket, a black mask and a gray backpack, making a phone call. Thompson is seen walking to the door of a hotel in a blue suit about 15 minutes later, more than two hours before the shareholders meeting was due to start.

The gunman stepped out from behind a car and raised a gun. He shot at least twice, hitting his victim in the calf and back. Thompson continued walking for a moment before turning to face his killer and then collapsing.

Police described the attacker as “proficient in firearms” as video footage showed him quickly releasing the firing mechanism of his weapon when it jammed and released another round. The assailant then walked up to Thompson as he slumped against a wall and raised his gun, but apparently did not fire again.

The killer then crossed the road and ran into an alley, which took him past the Ziegfeld Ballroom to West 55th Street. There he hopped on an electric bicycle, turned north onto 6th Avenue and rode into Central Park, where he dumped the backpack found by officers on Friday.

Police said that after leaving the park, the suspect took a taxi and then a bus out of town, but did not publicly indicate where it went.

Police quickly uncovered a series of possible clues, including a cell phone in the hallway the gunman fled along and video footage of the killer at a Starbucks near the hotel shortly before the shooting. Detectives trying to determine the gun’s origins followed a lead with a Connecticut gun dealer who sold a gun similar to the one used in the murder.

But there were also red herrings. Much was made of initial police claims that the killer had used an electric Citi Bike, which requires a credit or debit card and a phone app to rent, and is equipped with GPS trackers. This was expected to provide crucial clues. The next day, police withdrew that claim and focused instead on whether the killer had used an unmarked electric bicycle that he had set up for an outing or stolen from the street as he fled.

On Thursday, investigators had created a sketch of the gunman’s movements before the shooting. They concluded that he had arrived in New York about ten days before the murder on a bus from Atlanta, although it is not yet known where he boarded. He then stayed at a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, used a fake New Jersey ID to check in and shared a room with two strangers for at least some of the time.

One of the key finds was surveillance footage of the gunman at the hostel after he pulled off his mask, allegedly during a brief flirtation with a female employee, raising the possibility that he could be recognized or identified by someone who knows him using facial recognition. recognition technology. The man, who appears relatively young, is seen smiling in one photo and more serious in the other.

On Friday, officials said investigators had also found DNA evidence that had been sent for testing.

There was less information about the killer’s motives, but that did not stop the flow of suspicions, much of which was based on bitter experiences of the health insurance industry.

Thompson was separated from his wife Paulette, prompting speculation in her initial response that he had been shot by someone with a grudge against UnitedHealthcare. NBC News. “There had been some threats. Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know any details. All I know is that he said there were people threatening him,” she said.

It was no secret that there was a lot of public anger at UnitedHealthcare.

Earlier this year, demonstrators came from across the country collected outside the company’s headquarters in Minnesota over its refusal to pay about a third of claims research from ValuePenguin, more than any other health insurer.

Regulators and politicians have accused the company of boosting profits by systematically denying the care people are entitled to under their policies, or by refusing to cover the full costs and leaving patients in debt.

In October, a U.S. Senate committee cleared a report cataloging how UnitedHealthcare and other companies deny patients care after they are discharged from the hospital following acute surgeries, even when doctors say it is necessary for a full recovery. The report states that the denials are mainly done to boost profits.

The day before Thompson was killed, the American Society of Anesthesiologists released a statement condemning another health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, for imposing a limit on the amount of time it was willing to pay for patients undergoing surgery. undergo to receive anesthesia. . The company changed its position after the shooting.

But Thompson’s death unleashed something deeper in people who feel helpless in the face of giant medical corporations with the power of life or death.

A woman on TikTok told her own experience at the hands of UnitedHealthcare when she was nine months pregnant and in a hospital with a one-year-old baby who had just been diagnosed with “a giant brain tumor.” The woman said the child needed emergency surgery at a nearby hospital in a neighboring state.

“We were hospitalized for three days because UnitedHealthcare refused to authorize an ambulance transfer from the hospital where we live to another state. And at that moment I was ready to just get in my car and take her there myself. But UnitedHealthcare told us that if we left the hospital of our own volition, and it wasn’t by ambulance, they wouldn’t cover her at the next hospital we went to,” she said.

“I vividly remember being on the phone with UnitedHealthcare for days, nine months pregnant, about to give birth alone, while my other baby sat in a hospital room. And again: this is in no way tolerating violence. All I want to say is that I don’t doubt for a second what the suspect’s motive was.”

Others quoted Woody Guthrie: “Some rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen.”

The backlash came not only from patients, but also from doctors who said UnitedHealth refused to pay for a child with cancer to receive drugs for the side effects of chemotherapy and questioned the need for lifesaving care. The outpouring of anger within the medical profession at Thompson as representative of the insurance industry’s greed at the cost of lives caused Reddit moderators to delete a thread for the medical community: according to the Daily Beast.

The health insurance industry is just one part of a medical system that Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics, have described as a “Sheriff of Nottingham redistribution” into the fold of ordinary Americans to to indicate wealthy companies.

The couple published a study four years ago: Deaths of despair and the future of capitalismwhich concluded that the US healthcare industry is killing staggering numbers of patients while making Americans poorer.

“The U.S. health care system is a leading example of an institution that, under political patronage, redistributes revenue upward to hospitals, physicians, device makers, and pharmaceutical companies while simultaneously delivering the worst health outcomes of any wealthy country,” the economists wrote .

As the medical industry has become more predatory and charges more for surgeries and prescription drugs, insurance premiums have skyrocketed and patients have been required to make increasingly large out-of-pocket payments, which can amount to thousands of dollars per year. Or their claims are denied.

If the killer is caught, and his motive is what many Americans imagine, his trial could prove to be yet another rift in an already divided nation. Even if the killer wasn’t motivated by that anger, the outpouring of public anger against the health care industry should serve as something of a warning to its leaders.