CEO’s Killing Sparks Discourse On Broken Healthcare
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FEATURING DR. PAUL SONG - Police have arrested the alleged shooter of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson after a days-long manhunt. Thompson was shot in the back on his way to his company’s annual investor conference in Manhattan. He died instantly.
In a bizarre turn of events, the shooting unleashed a torrent of online vitriol at the health insurance industry and sparked discussions about how for-profit companies have been using artificial intelligence to deny claims.
One report in Wired.com explained it this way: “Following the shooting death of Brian Thompson, a fandom emerged around his suspected killer that seemed unifying in a way few others have been. He became an avatar that anyone who’d ever struggled with a hospital bill could understand.”
The suspect, Luigi Mangione, is an Ivy-league educated man from a wealthy Baltimore family, who had struggled with debilitating back pain. Speculation abounds as to his motivations and political ideology and the pro-industry backlash to his fandom has already begun.