UnitedHealthcare CEO’s shooting opens a door to vent frustrations
Dec 7, 2024, 3:10 PM | Updated: 3:22 pm
A general view outside the United Healthcare corporate headquarters on December 4, 2024 in Minnetonka, Minnesota. United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead on the street in New York City before he was to attend the company's annual investors meeting. (Stephen Maturen, Getty Images)
(Stephen Maturen, Getty Images)
For years, patients in the U.S. healthcare system have grown frustrated with a bureaucracy they don’t understand.
Doctors are included in an insurer’s network one year but not the next. Getting someone on the phone to help can be next to impossible. Coverage of care and prescriptions is often unceremoniously denied.
This week’s fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has unleashed a wave of public feeling. Americans are sharing their exasperation, anger, resentment, and helplessness via personal stories of interactions with insurance companies. The companies are often seen as faceless corporate giants.
Words “delay,” “deny,” “depose” found at UnitedHealthcare murder scene
The words written on ammunition found at the shooting scene — “delay,” “deny” and “depose” — echo a phrase used to describe how insurers dodge claim payouts. The words have amplified voices that have long been critical of the industry.
“All of a sudden, I am fired up again,” said Tim Anderson. He described how his wife, Mary, had to deal with UnitedHealthcare coverage denials before she died from Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in 2022.
Anderson said they couldn’t get coverage for machines to help his wife breathe or talk. Toward the end she communicated by blinking when he showed her pictures. The family had to rely on donations from a local ALS group, he said.
“The business model for insurance is don’t pay,” said Anderson, 67, of Centerville, Ohio.
“When Mary could still talk, she said to me to keep fighting this,” he added. “It needs to be exposed.”
For Anderson and others, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s death and the message left at the scene have created an opportunity to vent their frustrations. Conversations at dinner tables, office water coolers, social gatherings and on social media have pivoted to the topic, as police efforts to find the gunman keep the case in the news.
Hans Maristela said he understands why the chatter is bubbling up. The 54-year-old caregiver in California was moved to comment on Facebook about UnitedHealthcare’s reputation of denying coverage. As a Catholic, he said, he grieves Thompson’s death and feels for his family, especially with the holidays around the corner.
But he sees frustration with insurers even among his clients, most of them wealthy older people who’ve not been shielded from high out-of-pocket costs.
