Manhattan Murder

December 9, 2024

The shooting death of UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson on December 4 re-opened the debate about America’s inadequate and overpriced healthcare system. For years, UnitedHealth and other insurance giants have been criticized, accused, and sued for denying services to policyholders to enhance profits. Ceding healthcare decisions to the private sector is uniquely American and unnecessarily costly. In Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, and other developed nations, healthcare is funded by governments, and doctors and patients make decisions about hospitalization, procedures, and treatments. In America, insurance middlemen profit from medicine. They make life-and-death decisions about whether to fund medical procedures and medications, even those recommended by physicians and desired by patients. The Manhattan murderer left behind clues that made it evident that his objective was to highlight that many people needlessly die as a result of America’s health insurance industry. The result was that the murder lit up the Internet. One posted on X: "When you shoot one man in the street, it's murder. When you kill thousands of people in hospitals by taking away their ability to get treatment, you're an entrepreneur."