Killing Of Exec Unleashes Fury At Health Insurers

CNN reports:

The early morning killing of a top health insurance executive in midtown Manhattan Wednesday has unleashed a flurry of rage and frustration from social media users over denials of their medical claims, a public display of Americans’ pent-up anger at the nation’s complex health insurance industry.

In one stark example, a Facebook post by UnitedHealth Group expressing sadness about UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s death received 62,000 reactions – 57,000 of them laughing emojis. UnitedHealth Group is the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, the division that Thompson ran.

Nearly one in five insured adults experienced claim denials during a 12-month period, according to KFF’s 2023 survey. A class action lawsuit filed last year in US District Court in Minnesota argued that UnitedHealthcare uses AI “in place of real medical professionals to wrongfully deny elderly patients care,” according to the complaint.

This morning a CNN panelist said this:

“This is exposing frustration in the public across income levels. I just think – just to state the obvious to some extent – this is as much about the Internet and how the Internet has broken us as a people. Most of the people putting those laughing emojis in responses would never look this person’s wife in the eye and say that no matter what kind of problems they might have with how United handled their health care.”

There’s much on the reaction at the first link, including many accounts of UnitedHealth claims having been denied.