The targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has become a defining moment in the zeitgeist of American healthcare.
The attack was a tragedy that contributes to the country’s dismal gun death count. But instead of generating sympathy, it opened the floodgates to an outpouring of anger, recorded on social media and online forums, about the healthcare system – a system that charges people the highest prices in the world, erects financial and bureaucratic barriers to obtaining care, and has plunged millions into debt.
Posts on social media ranged from sad to apathetic to joyful, including morbid celebrations of Thompson’s death. That deluge has forced people across the country to grapple with two heavy issues at once: the callousness of a murder, and an undercurrent of deep-seated anger about a health care industry that makes a lot of money by exploiting Americans.
Much of this happened before there was any hint as to the shooter’s motive. People assumed someone was motivated to kill Thompson because of his work, which is telling, said Yolonda Wilson, an associate professor of health care ethics at Saint Louis University. Wilson added that she was speaking for herself and not her employer.
“I think this says something very important about how people experience health care in this country,” Wilson said. “I don’t think it’s just anger. I think it’s pain. I think a lot of people have pent-up pain, and they haven’t had a place to release it.”
Public dissatisfaction has never been greater. Recent polling data show that the health care system is as unpopular now as it was before the Affordable Care Act went into effect 15 years ago — a time when insurers could refuse to cover people if they already had some pre-existing health conditions and nearly 49 million people did not have insurance . A Gallup research The report published Friday shows that “Americans’ positive ratings of the quality of U.S. health care are now at their lowest point” since 2001.
Several factors contributed to that resentment. About 25 million Americans are still uninsured. Tens of millions of others have health insurance but cannot afford their deductibles, coinsurance or copays because of the high prices of tests, surgeries and prescription drugs. Insurers have tried to eradicate it unnecessary proceduresbut that sometimes results in inappropriate delays or denials of care and excessive paperwork. These barriers are not just a nuisance; they can be too real effects on the health of patients.
After care is provided, patients are inundated with… medical bills they don’t understand – perplexed why their insurer won’t stand up on their behalf, and worried that hospitals and other providers will send them to collections or sue them. Issues such as unexpected ambulance bills, a problem that almost everyone agrees on, must remain resolved usual as always.
It’s all part of a health care system that’s expected to spend $5 trillion this year, further eroding workers’ wages.
“That’s more than enough money to take care of everyone,” said Mark Fendrick, an internal medicine physician and professor at the University of Michigan. studied ways to improve health insurance. “And that’s more than enough money to avoid this significant number of Americans feeling wronged by their insurance company.”
Police have not yet arrested the person who killed Thompson. New reporting shows that the gunman’s shell casings were engraved with “deny” and “defend,” words related to the way insurance companies handle medical claims. But they don’t confirm a motive.
UnitedHealthcare, an insurer whose parent company also owns physician groups and a major claims processor, has faced a lot of hostility over the years. The techniques have advanced with technology. STAT previously reported that UnitedHealthcare and a sister company, NaviHealth, have used algorithms and artificial intelligence to limit and deny rehabilitation care for vulnerable older adults.
In a statement posted on its website Thursday, UnitedHealth said “we have been touched by the outpouring of kindness and support in the hours since this horrific crime occurred.”
“We at UnitedHealth Group will continue to be there for those who depend on us for their health care,” the company said.
The public’s disdain for insurance companies is not new and extends far beyond health care plans.
“During my research, it shocked me to learn the extent to which people have always hated insurance companies – from the very beginning of the business,” says Katherine Hempstead, a senior health care policy fellow at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who wrote a book about the history of the American insurance industry. “People need insurance, but they generally don’t trust insurance companies and assume the worst motives.”
What’s new: More and more consolidated providers and insurers, and a political climate that has fueled and tolerated violence, amplified by the speed with which an online post can go viral.
Mary Haddad, the head of the Catholic Health Association, a trade group for Catholic hospitals and long-term care facilities, said violence should not be tolerated.
“People have to separate the person from the institution. This is a husband. This is a father. This is someone who lost his life,” Haddad said. “We need to take a step back and say, ‘What is our compassionate response to the loss of a life?’ I think we’ve become numb to that.”
However, she said the suffering within the current health care system is real.
“I think people feel a sense of helplessness in dealing with this massive commercial insurance industry that we have in this country that puts limitations on people’s ability to get care,” Haddad said. “I think when you feel that sense of helplessness, you end up in these kinds of situations where people don’t know what else to do.”
Those who feel most disadvantaged are often the sickest. Most people are generally satisfied with their health insurance. However, people who have more health problems and therefore need care more often do not like their coverage nearly as much as healthier people, he said poll from research agency KFF.
“I always say it’s like car insurance: I want to know which people have had an accident,” says Bob Blendon, a professor of health policy at Harvard University who has tracked public sentiment about health care for more than 40 years.
“I don’t just want to know people who paid for 10 years and never used it,” Blendon said. “The people in good and poor health are regular users, and they are less satisfied.”
Ty Beringer is among those forced to interact with the system on a regular basis. The 30-year-old Arkansas resident has type 1 diabetes. Beringer has a full-time job with health insurance, so he can currently get the insulin he needs without any major problems. But there were times during and after college when he said he had to ration insulin to avoid the large out-of-pocket costs.
Beringer posted on X that the denials and protocols of companies like UnitedHealthcare can make people desperate. And he said in an interview that he views the reactions to Thompson’s killing as people “collectively expressing their grief to an industry.”
“I sympathize with the family of Brian Thompson, but I also sympathize with the millions of families who have been torn apart because of UnitedHealthcare and the healthcare system at large,” Beringer said.
For Saint Louis University’s Wilson, the frustration with UnitedHealthcare is also personal. She was scheduled to undergo surgery a year ago, but the insurer withdrew approval just two days in advance. Wilson remembers crying when she learned the procedure would cost tens of thousands of dollars without insurance. Fortunately, UnitedHealthcare just missed the necessary test results and she was still able to have surgery.
Wilson acknowledges that her level of education and a team of attorneys helped her overcome the hurdle, but not everyone has the same privileges. After Thompson’s death, she decided to share her experiences on social media to help people understand the harm she believes UnitedHealthcare is doing to people.
“While I’m not happy about the CEO of UHC being shot dead in the street, I’m not sad about it either,” Wilson said. wrote on X. “People deserve better.” She added in an interview that her canceled surgery made it seem like the company wasn’t “terribly interested in how that plays out from the patient’s point of view,” which she said is “really disturbing.”
The anger that has erupted since Thompson’s murder is something Monica Bryant sees every day in her work as Chief Operating Officer at Triage Cancer, a nonprofit organization that provides free education and legal advice to cancer patients.
“People feel like there’s an inherent unfairness in the way the system works,” Bryant said. “For someone with health insurance to get sick and then it could be a company, a company, that could be the barrier to them getting access to the care that they need to sometimes save their life.”