The Price of Profits Paid in Blood

In the early morning hours in midtown Manhattan, New York City, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the nation's largest health insurer, and a father of two, was assassinated. The assassin fired his gun at point-blank range, using bullets inscribed with the words "Deny," "Depose" and "Defend." The masked assailant swiftly escaped on a bicycle and discarded his backpack in Central Park. Two days later, law enforcement discovered the backpack, which was filled with Monopoly money. Just a few days after that, the alleged shooter, a 26-year-old activist, was apprehended in a McDonald's in Pennsylvania.

The public expressed little sympathy following Thompson's demise. Indeed, most of the public's reaction consisted of mockery toward Thompson and celebration for the assassin.

The response to the CEO's assassination is anything but surprising. The health care system in the United States is frequently criticized for its inefficiencies and its prioritization of profits over patient welfare. As with any industry, there exist both respectable and unscrupulous insurers; however, UnitedHealthcare is regarded as one of the worst among patients.

Following the assassination, numerous accounts from frustrated UnitedHealthcare customers emerged online, detailing instances where UnitedHealthcare denied basic coverage for essential medications, procedures and medical devices, despite the patients' doctors explicitly establishing their medical necessity, with UnitedHealthcare asserting they were, in fact, not medically necessary. Although no legislation mandates health care providers to disclose their claim denial rates, a study on in-network data plans revealed that UnitedHealthcare denies 32% -- nearly one-third -- of all claims, significantly exceeding the industry average of 16%.

UnitedHealthcare encountered condemnation and now ongoing litigation when, from 2020 to 2022, its post-acute care denial rate -- pertaining to the care for transitioning individuals from hospitals to their homes -- increased from 10.9% to 22.7% following the implementation of an artificial intelligence system that autonomously made determinations on insurance claims without human oversight. One of the lawsuits revealed that 90% of the denials were overturned on appeal, indicating a 90% error rate.

This brings us to our current position. When someone dies or endures suffering due to their health insurer's denial of claims, can you necessarily blame them for expressing some sense of satisfaction at the demise of the person who made a significant contribution to that suffering, mirroring the fate of themselves, their family member or even their child?

Many Americans have major concerns with our health care system; nevertheless, I believe these issues are often misdirected. If insurers did not deny coverage to the extent that they currently do, and if hospitals and pharmaceutical companies didn't charge the exorbitant rates they do for their products, the United States would have the strongest health care system in the world. Socializing medicine is unnecessary to achieve that outcome, as is price-fixing. The only thing that we need to consider is the only thing that matters in business: Are Americans being ripped off when paying for medical products and services?

UnitedHealthcare reported $16.4 billion in operating earnings last year. This profit comes not from inventive, groundbreaking medical technology but from accumulating substantial insurance premiums and subsequently failing to provide the promised benefits when customers seek to redeem those benefits. Why should a customer who spends $10,000 annually on health insurance be denied medication or a medical treatment deemed medically necessary by their physician simply because the insurer disagrees with the physician's assessment? Why should they have to fight tooth and nail to get the health insurance company to pay for it? Even if they could postpone for alternative options with a low but not negligible risk to their health, or attempt different medications first, when their suffering could be alleviated immediately, why shouldn't they be able to fix what is making them suffer? Isn't that what they have paid for? Are we OK with millions of Americans medically suffering just so health care companies can add a few extra dollars to their profits? How many days of work? How many hours of productivity are lost to companies across the United States because employees are suffering? The losses don't end with the patient; $16.4 billion is a lot of money, and I would think insurers, whose entire business model is minimizing risk by spreading it through millions of others through the accumulation of large sums of money, could use that extra money to help their customers.

And what accounts for the $10,000 charges that people receive for a single night in a hospital room, independent of any additional services? Why do lifesaving drugs like EpiPens, for example, which only cost several dollars to make, cost $600? Why do drugs cost 10 times more in the United States than they do in other developed nations? Why do the most basic medical services cost so much money?

The health care system in the United States does not need to be the way it is. It need not necessarily be an ineffective system either. It can actually be the best system globally. Hospitals impose excessive charges, and insurers reject an absurd number of claims, enabling both to achieve unprecedented profits at the expensive of people's health. Consequently, today, health care CEOs are meticulously cleansing their online presence to achieve anonymity. The UnitedHealthcare CEO appears to have been a casualty of the health care system, and perhaps the killer had nothing to lose when he discharged those bullets at Thompson at around 6:45 a.m. in midtown Manhattan.

The assassination of Thompson is a tragedy for his family and is, in general, a reprehensible act of violence. Cold-blooded murder is abhorrent, and decisions of whether men should live or die as a result of their acts should be left to juries or people facing imminent death, not vigilantes seeking justice for political causes. Whether one believes Thompson was a good man or not is not the point. Whether his business decisions directly caused the suffering of millions of UnitedHealthcare customers is not the point. The decision of whether he should have lived or died, or been free or imprisoned for his actions, should not have been left to a 26-year-old activist.

Yet regardless of your abhorrence toward the act of cold-blooded murder, it is also undeniable that this killing was inevitable. These health care companies have accumulated a long list of enemies, such that any one of the countless Americans who have suffered as a result of their conduct or lost a loved one could possess a motive to harm them. Tragically, it was only a matter of time.

Armstrong Williams is manager/sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast owner of the year. To find out more about him and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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