When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed in a targeted shooting Wednesday morning in New York, politicians in his home state of Minnesota posted messages of sympathy on social media. But those supportive responses were soon drowned out by a very different tone, as people shared horror stories about being denied health insurance company coverage and made morbid jokes comparing the CEO’s death to the way they were mistreated. by the US healthcare system.
TO post on facebook by UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, He said he was “deeply saddened and shocked by the passing of our dear friend and colleague Brian Thompson.” But that post has garnered more than 11,000 laughing emojis as of this writing, far surpassing the more somber emojis used to express condolences. Comments were disabled for that post, but comments like ““I would offer thoughts and prayers, but they are not covered because they are off-grid.”
An Instagram post from the company was similarly blocked, preventing average users from commenting directly, but other posts on the platform also had scathing comments. in a mail from last week, which discussed ways to handle holiday stress, commenters didn’t hold back: “My empathy is off the charts for this.”
“I’m sorry. But my insurance and Medicaid don’t cover Thoughts and Prayers,” read one comment with hundreds of likes, echoing the sentiment that had become a meme.
“Judging by the public reaction, I think the bigger story should be why this doesn’t happen more often,” another comment reads.
Other comments became more personal, with people sharing their stories of being denied coverage by UnitedHealthcare and having to pay large sums of money to survive: “My uncle paid you guys for 22 years without missing a single payment and then when died, you denied his life insurance claim. You even had the nerve to cash him a check the week he died. Garbage bags. Sometimes you get what you deserve. I hope you all suffer like my mom over the last year had to endure the nightmare of losing her brother and then almost declaring bankruptcy because you denied her a life insurance claim paid on time and faithfully for 22 years. Then you turn around and spit on his corpse. Your claim for empathy has been denied. I hope everyone understands what is coming.”
Others made dark jokes: “It looks like that hole in his chest was a pre-existing condition. You will have to deny coverage.”
UnitedHealthcare insures more than 49 million Americans and the company generated $281 billion in revenue last year, according to the Associated Press. The insurance giant is known for denying coverage and deploying an artificial intelligence tool that has an error rate of approximately 90%according to a lawsuit filed last year.
There were also videos on Instagram that took note of the fact that the UnitedHealth conference in Manhattan started on time at 8:00 a.m. ET, even though Thompson was killed around 6:45 a.m. The conference finally stopped a little after 9:00 am. And some tweets on X openly celebrated the CEO’s death, with videos promoting the killer’s fashion choices and backpack.
But not all the reactions were happy. There were many people who opposed celebrating a murder. Thompson reportedly had two children and a wife, who told NBC News that she had recently been receiving death threats, possibly related to “the lack of coverage.”
“To those people who laughed at this post, what a shame that the family lost a loved one and yet you have to be an idiot, just remember karma is a bitch,” one comment on Facebook read.
The reactions seem like a significant shift in the country’s tone, however imperfect a barometer of social media commentary may be. Normally, trolling and sadistic glee over a person’s death are relegated to the margins on extremist sites like 4chan or X since Elon Musk bought the platform. But Wednesday’s wave of anger and frustration against the health care system could be seen openly on the Internet.
It makes sense that Americans would be more flexible with their sense of decorum these days. Donald Trump’s re-election to the presidency signaled a kind of right-wing populist nihilism as the Republican leader embraced conspiracy theories, threatened to persecute his political enemies, and demonized immigrants in wildly racist ways. The sometimes celebratory attitude of such a broad swath of Americans on Wednesday felt like an acceptance of that same kind of nihilism.
The history of the United States is one of tremendous violence, but the last two decades have been relatively stable when it comes to domestic bloodshed for political purposes. The United States carried out an average of five bombing raids a day in the early 1970s, according to the FBIa simple fact that is not often remembered here in the 21st century. And a century ago, it was completely normal for dozens of people to die at once during Labor actions in the USwhile workers and bosses fought for control. All of which is to say that this is probably the beginning and not the end of people embracing political violence, especially as Trump prepares to take power with promises of retaliation. Peace and stability are not the norm.
The person who shot Brian Thompson is still at large and the NYPD is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. But even that news provided another opportunity for people on social media to point out how UnitedHeath’s policies had hurt them. As one user wrote blue sky“The reward for the person who shot the CEO of United Healthcare is not even enough to cover 1/9 of the bill we received for 28 days of radiation.”