The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson (not quite “in broad daylight,” as dawn hadn’t quite broken yet) is the sort of story that will keep the nation’s attention because it stands out in so many ways — an unusual time and place, an unusual victim, a seemingly unusual weapon, and an unusually high number of class-warfare, feces-flinging howler monkeys on social media who cheer on the premeditated murder of a health-insurance-company executive.
Murder in Manhattan
The top official in the biggest health-insurance company in the country was steps away from the entrance to Hilton Hotel at 1335 Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan when an assassin emerged from behind a parked car, raised a 9-millimeter pistol, and shot him at least twice. Brian Thompson, the 50-year-old CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was pronounced dead at Roosevelt Hospital.
For those of you who have visited New York City, that location is about a block from the Museum of Modern Art, just three blocks down the street from Radio City Music Hall, two blocks and around the corner from Carnegie Hall, and just down the street from Rockefeller Center, where last night they lit the iconic Christmas tree.
You’re going to hear a lot of speculation and rumors today — what Kat Rosenfield calls the “John Wick-meets-Erin Brockovich theory,” that an individual who was denied coverage or saw coverage denied for a loved one sought revenge against UnitedHealthcare — but this newsletter will attempt to stick to known facts. With that said, some clues are pointing in that direction.
Yesterday, five hours into the investigation, NYPD chief of detectives Joseph Kenny laid out the facts known at that point:
What we know is that the shooter arrived at the location on foot about five minutes prior to the victim’s arrival. He stands alongside the building line, as numerous other people and pedestrians pass him by. From video, we see at 6:44 a.m. the victim is walking alone towards the Hilton, after exiting his hotel across the street. We believe the victim was headed to the Hilton Hotel to attend the UnitedHealth Group investors conference that was scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m. The shooter appears to be a light-skinned male. . . .It appears that the gun malfunctions, as he clears the jam and begins to fire again.
Later in the video, Kenny said that the NYPD only has “regular video” and no audio of the shooting. Kenny, commenting on the assassin, states that “from watching the video, it does seem that he’s proficient in the use of firearms, as he was able to clear the malfunctions pretty quickly.”
Fox News reported that “multiple law enforcement contacts” said “that they believed the weapon used in the murder resembled a ‘Welrod’, a bolt action, suppressed pistol first used in WW2.” “I’d bet my pension that this is the weapon that was used on the United CEO. It’s very, very quiet and requires manual cycling after each round is fired. Top choice by pros for up-close, quiet work,” a source told Fox News.
The shooter could reasonably surmise that Thompson would be at the Hilton Hotel; the conference had been publicly announced November 26.
The victim’s wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News he had been receiving threats:
“There had been some threats,” she said. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”
Then there is this detail:
The words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” were discovered by detectives on the shell casings found at the scene where Thompson was killed, police sources told ABC News late Wednesday evening.
If that report is accurate, the shooter appears to be literally sending a message.
UnitedHealthcare is a health-insurance company; it is part of a conglomerate called UnitedHealth Group that also includes Optum, a health care and technology company.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reviewed police records for UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters in Minnetonka:
Police records show there have been many calls from company headquarters since January 2021, but a substantial number of those were 911 hang-ups.On July 15, 11 people were arrested when the People’s Action Institute staged a protest over the company’s allegedly improper refusals to authorize or pay for care. UnitedHealth Group said at the time the safety of its workers was a top priority, and it had resolved the group’s specific concerns, remaining open to a broader dialogue on access to care.
One of those eleven people arrested was from New York:
Other calls have included three for an “unwanted person” and one each for an unfounded threat, a civil matter and a disturbance. The civil matter involved a UnitedHealthcare client living in California who was in a reimbursement dispute in May involving $1,000.
On May 1, the People’s Action Institute specifically denounced UnitedHealthcare for “dominating the privatized Medicare market, making most of its profits off of public dollars and yet, engaging in systemic delays and denials of care.” But the group called out UnitedHealth CEO Sir Andrew Witty (Witty is the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare):
Despite having health insurance coverage, people are experiencing barriers to receiving care. The largest barrier to receiving care is the private health insurance corporations themselves refusing to authorize or pay for care. United Healthcare stands out in particular as a company that is dominating the privatized Medicare market, making most of its profits off of public dollars and yet, engaging in systemic delays and denials of care. Everyone should have the health care they need, when and where they need it, and we demand UnitedHealthcare stop profiting by denying people their health care.UnitedHealth Group’s profiteering by denying care is a disgrace, leaving people across Minnesota & all of the United States without the care they desperately need.Tell UnitedHealth CEO Sir Andrew Witty he must respond to our demands!
There’s one other recent crime against the company that is probably unrelated, but will likely be explored as an avenue of investigation:
Hackers breached the computer system of a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary and released ransomware after stealing someone’s password, CEO Andrew Witty testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill. The cybercriminals entered through a portal that didn’t have multifactor authentification (MFA) enabled.During an hourslong congressional hearing, Witty told lawmakers that the company has not yet determined how many patients and health care professionals were impacted by the cyberattack on Change Healthcare in February. . . .The cyberattack came from Russia-based ransomware gang ALPHV or BlackCat. The group itself claimed responsibility for the attack, alleging it stole more than six terabytes of data, including “sensitive” medical records. The attack triggered a disruption of payment and claims processing around the country, stressing doctor’s offices and health care systems by interfering with their ability to file claims and get paid.
Again, the hack is probably unrelated to Thompson’s murder, but if one of the shell casings had indeed been inscribed with “deny,” “defend,” and “depose,” note that UnitedHealth Group “has already been hit with at least six class-action lawsuits accusing it of failing to protect millions of people’s personal data from last month’s hack of Change Healthcare, its payment processing unit, with more lawsuits likely to come.”
And then there’s one other potential crime, laid out by Crain’s New York Business in April:
UnitedHealth Group Chairman Stephen Hemsley and three senior executives netted a combined $101.5 million from stock sales made over four months leading up to when the public became aware of a federal antitrust investigation.The sales occurred between Oct. 16, a week after the nation’s largest health insurer reportedly received notice of the Justice Department probe, and Feb. 26, the day before Bloomberg News and others published stories about the investigation. The stock dropped after the investigation was widely reported. . . .The DOJ is reviewing whether UnitedHealth’s acquisitions have consolidated its position in some markets in a way that violates antitrust laws, according to a person familiar with the probe who asked not to be identified discussing a nonpublic investigation. . . .Brian Thompson, CEO of the UnitedHealthcare insurance unit, on Feb. 16 exercised options and sold shares, netting him $15.1 million, according to Bloomberg calculations.
There appears to be some confusion about this online, so here it is plain and simple: Murdering corporate executives is evil.
You don’t have to look far on social media to find some people shrugging off the wife and two teenage sons now without a husband and father, and insisting that Thompson deserved to get murdered, because these people don’t like the policies and decisions of UnitedHealthcare. You can even find these sentiments in the writings of a particular infamous former columnist for some of the biggest newspapers in the country. I’d like to think that the sneering, gloating tone of those comments won’t age well. But when it comes to things that age, it’s always hard to tell.
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