'Pent up anger' at health insurance industry explodes on social media after CEO shooting

06 December 2024

After UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered outside of his Midtown Manhattan hotel earlier this week by a gunman who is still at large, a larger conversation has erupted on social media about the health insurance industry's business practices.

CNN reported Friday that there is a "flood of frustration" online in which people are using Thompson's death as a jump-off point to rip large health insurance companies over frivolous claim denials of necessary healthcare procedures. One TikTok user said she would have been "happy to send my condolences after the UnitedHealthcare CEO was killed this afternoon, however unfortunately sympathy requires a prior authorization and I have to deny that request."

"They also denied my son his AFOs — ankle foot orthotics — because he did have a stroke. So half of his body doesn't work the same as the other half, and he needs those to walk," another TikTok user said. "They denied him, because he grew too fast. They said: 'He just had some five months ago!' I was like: "Yeah. And then he grew, because he was two years old. And two year olds tend to do that."

The still-unknown assassin reportedly wrote the words "delay," "deny" and "depose" on shell casings found at the scene of the shooting, which is a play on the slogan popular among health insurance industry professionals — "delay, deny and defend." This suggests the gunman may have been motivated by a claim denial that directly impacted him personally or a close friend or family member.

CNN reporter Clare Duffy noted that while "there is no justification for this kind of violence," she acknowledged that Thompson's death has still exposed a "bubbling up of pent-up anger and frustration and distrust that Americans feel toward the health insurance industry." She mentioned that a Facebook post by UnitedHealth's official page about Thompson's death garnered tens of thousands of reactions, "and the majority of those were laughing-face emojis."

Duffy further reported that in one study, 58% of Americans reported that they had experienced problems with their own health insurance, including claim denials. And 15% of those who experienced denials say they experienced a decline in their health as a result of those denials. And she mentioned that a lawsuit filed last year against UnitedHealth accused the company of using artificial intelligence to deny claims filed by elderly patients, even though it had a 90% error rate.

Watch the CNN segment below, or by clicking this link.

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