United Health Care CEO Murder

12/5/24— After United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in Manhattan on his way to an investor conference in New York City on 12/4/24, news articles relayed that he was a dedicated husband and father of two boys—a good man. While I’m sure this was true — and Thompson’s death was an unwarranted tragedy— it is fair to assume that was killed due to his role as UHC’s CEO.

United Healthcare is well known for denying insurance claims, and is a publicly traded, for-profit insurance carriers. Publicly traded, for profit-companies have a primary responsibility to their share holders, and thus cannot due justice to both shareholders and policy holders. Someone has got to come second, and clearly that has been the policy holders.

According to CNBC, “UnitedHealth Group is the biggest health-care conglomerate in the United States based on revenue and its roughly $563 billion market cap. UnitedHealthcare posted more than $281 billion in revenue last year, making up more than two-thirds of UnitedHealth Group’s annual revenue for 2023.”

Insurance carriers make more money, by denying more claims. United Healthcare takes first place in this arena, denying 32% of insurance claims annually, according to data from plans sold on the marketplace.

At some point, when people get rejected enough times, something snaps. Thompson surely cannot be held solely responsible for the for-profit healthcare model, however our society must use this tragedy to look at the underlying problem.

In the meantime, in the absence of systemic change, organizations like mine challenge health insurance carriers one denial at a time. We are not dettered by long hold times, disconnected phone lines, lost documents, mutliple denials and errors and miscalculations. We calmy and methodically respond, appeal, and wait, and then do it again.