What Public Reaction to the Murder of a Health Insurance CEO Tells Us
The system is beyond broken
The CEO of one of the United States’ largest health insurance companies was gunned down yesterday in New York City while heading to an annual investor meeting. The police described it as a “targeted attack,” and a video depicted a gunman calmly carrying out the killing and then riding away on an e-bike.
Whatever the motive, the way people reacted to the murder says a lot about the state of America.
The New York Times reported that a law enforcement official said the slain UnitedHealthcare CEO “had recently received several threats and that the police were investigating their source and exact nature, but noted that healthcare executives can often receive threats because of the nature of their work.”1
The nature of their work.
Why would death threats be the natural result of running a health insurance company?
To people outside the US, this must sound very bizarre.
The late CEO’s wife confirmed to NBC News following the murder that there had been threats against her husband. She didn’t seem to know exactly why, saying, “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage?2
While the motive in this case is still unknown, that’s a good guess, and it’s the assumption that pretty much everyone commenting online reached. Some people were outright celebrating the death as payback for all the Americans who died after being denied coverage by UnitedHealthcare.
Others condemned the murder but expressed that this kind of thing was inevitable since nobody seems to care about how much Americans are suffering due to the unchecked behavior of health insurance companies. Many of the comments mimicked the language insurers use when they are denying claims. A tweet announcing news of the murder had more than 6,0000 “likes” last time I checked.3