The targeted assassination of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare has become a defining moment in the zeitgeist of American health care.
The attack was a tragedy that adds to the country’s grim death toll from gunshots. But instead of generating sympathy, it opened the floodgates of an outpouring of anger, captured on social media and online forums, during the health system – a system that charges people the highest prices in the world, erects financial and bureaucratic barriers to accessing care, and plunges millions into debt.
Social media posts range from sad to apathetic to joyful, including morbid celebrations of Thompson’s death. This deluge has forced people across the country to grapple with two serious issues at once: the callousness of murder and an undercurrent of deep-rooted anger against a health care industry that earn a lot of money by exploiting the Americans.
Much of this happened before there were any clues about the shooter’s motivations. People thought someone was driven to kill Thompson because of his work, which is telling, said Yolonda Wilson, an associate professor of health care ethics at Saint Louis University. Wilson added that she was speaking for herself and not her employer.
“I think it says a lot about how people experience health care in this country,” Wilson said. “I don’t think it’s just anger. I think it’s pain. I think a lot of people have pent up pain and don’t have a place to put it. »
Public discontent has never been greater. Recent survey data show that health care is as unpopular today as it was before the Affordable Care Act took effect 15 years ago — a time when insurers could refuse to cover people if they had a number of pre-existing health conditions and nearly 49 million people were missing them. insurance. A Gallup survey released Friday reveals that “Americans’ positive assessment of the quality of health care in the United States is now at its lowest level” since 2001.
Several factors contributed to this resentment. About 25 million Americans remain uninsured. Tens of millions of other people have health insurance but cannot afford to pay for it. franchisescoinsurance or copayments due to high prices for tests, surgeries, and prescription drugs. Insurers tried to eradicate unnecessary proceduresbut this sometimes results in delays or denial of inappropriate care and excessive paperwork. These obstacles are not just a nuisance: they can have real effects on patient health.
Once care is provided, patients are inundated with medical expenses they don’t understand – perplexed why their insurer won’t advocate for them and fearful that hospitals and other providers will send them to collections or sue them. Things like surprise bills ambulancea problem that almost all agree should be solved, remains as is common as always.
It’s all part of a health care system expected to spend $5 trillion this year, further eating into workers’ wages.
“It’s more than enough to take care of everyone,” said Mark Fendrick, an internal medicine doctor and professor at the University of Michigan. studied ways to improve health insurance. “And that’s more than enough to prevent that significant number of Americans who feel shortchanged by their insurance company.”
Police have not arrested the person who killed Thompson. New reporting shows that the shooter’s bullet casings were marked “deny” and “defend,” words associated with how insurance companies handle medical claims. But they don’t confirm a motive.
UnitedHealthcare, an insurer whose the parent company also owns physician groups and a major claims processing organization, has generated much animosity over the years. His techniques have evolved with technology. STAT previously reported that UnitedHealthcare and a sister company, NaviHealth, used algorithms and artificial intelligence to limit and deny rehabilitation care to vulnerable seniors.
In a statement posted on its website Thursday, UnitedHealth said that “we have been touched by the overwhelming outpouring of kindness and support in the hours following this horrific crime.”
“At UnitedHealth Group, we will continue to be there for those who depend on us for their health care,” the company said.
Public disdain for insurance companies is nothing new and extends far beyond health plans.
“In doing my research, I was shocked to learn how much people have always hated insurance companies – from the company’s earliest days,” said Katherine Hempstead, senior health care policy manager. health at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who wrote a book on the history of the American insurance industry. “People need insurance, but they generally don’t trust insurance companies and assume the worst motives. »
What’s new: increasingly consolidated providers and insurers, and a political climate that has fomented and tolerated violence, amplified by the speed with which an online post can go viral.
Mary Haddad, director of the Catholic Health Association, a trade group for Catholic hospitals and long-term care facilities, said violence should not be tolerated.
“People need to separate the person from the institution. He’s a husband. He’s a father. This is someone who lost their life,” Haddad said. “We need to step back and say, ‘What is our compassionate response to the loss of a life?’ “I think we’ve become desensitized to that.
However, she said the suffering in the current health care system is real.
“I think people feel helpless in the face of this gigantic commercial insurance industry that we have in this country that restricts people’s ability to get care,” Haddad said. “I think when you have that feeling of helplessness, you end up in situations like this where people don’t know what else to do.”
Those who feel most harmed are often the sickest. Most people are generally satisfied with their health insurance. However, according to vote from the KFF research firm.
“I always say it’s like car insurance: I want to know the people who’ve been in an accident,” said Bob Blendon, a health policy professor at Harvard University who tracks public opinion at health care for more than four decades.
“I don’t just want to know people who paid for it for 10 years and never used it,” Blendon said. “People in fair or poor health are regular users, and they are less satisfied. »
Ty Beringer is one of those who is forced to interact with the system regularly. The 30-year-old Arkansas resident has Type 1 diabetes. Beringer works full-time with Medicare, so he is currently able to get the insulin he needs without major problems . But there were times during and after college when he said he had to ration insulin to avoid the large expenses he had to pay.
Beringer posted on that denials and protocols from companies like UnitedHealthcare could drive people to despair. And he said in an interview that he saw the responses to Thompson’s killing as people “collectively expressing their grief at an industry.”
“I feel for Brian Thompson’s family, but I also feel for the millions of families who have been torn apart because of UnitedHealthcare and the health care system as a whole,” Beringer said.
For Saint Louis University’s Wilson, the frustration with UnitedHealthcare is also personal. She was scheduled to have surgery a year ago when the insurer withdrew its approval just two days in advance. Wilson remembers crying when she learned the procedure would cost tens of thousands of dollars without insurance. Fortunately, UnitedHealthcare lacked the necessary test results, and she was ultimately able to have surgery.
Wilson credits her education level and a team of advocates with helping her overcome obstacles, but not everyone has the same privileges. After Thompson’s death, she decided to share her experience on social media to help people understand the harm she says UnitedHealthcare is inflicting on people.
“While I’m not happy about the fact that the CEO of UHC was shot in the street, I’m not sad about it either,” Wilson said. written the. “People deserve better.” She added in an interview that her canceled surgery made it seem like the company wasn’t “terribly interested in how this plays out from a patient perspective,” which she said is “really troubling “.
The anger that has erupted since Thompson’s killing is something Monica Bryant sees daily in her job as director of operations at Triage Cancer, a nonprofit that provides free education and legal advice to cancer patients.
“People feel there is an inherent injustice in the way the system works,” Bryant said. “That a person who has health insurance gets sick and that’s a business, a business, that can be a barrier to accessing the care that they need to sometimes save their life.”