UnitedHealthcare's Facebook Post About Slain CEO Flooded With 'Haha' Reactions
After UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down this week, the insurance giant memorialized him in a Facebook post, praising him as “a highly respected colleague and friend to all who worked with him.”
It was not met with a positive response.
The 50-year-old Thompson was fatally shot on Wednesday outside of a Hilton hotel in Midtown, Manhattan. The shooter was still at large as of Friday afternoon. Paulette Thompson, the wife of the CEO, told NBC News that her husband had received threats recently, but didn’t know the exact details.
The bullets used by the shooter had the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” emblazoned on them, The Associated Press notes — a possible reference a phrase used by insurance industry critics to describe insurers’ tactics to avoid paying out claims.
In the wake of the killing, widespread public animosity towards health insurers ― and UnitedHealthcare specifically ― may explain why the company quickly limited who could comment on their tribute to Thompson.
Still, people still found a way to express how they felt ― to the tune of more than 90,000 laughing reactions as of Friday.
Other people on X, formerly Twitter, reacted to the news by talking about how UHC had treated them during their own health scares. Others mocked Thompson’s killing openly.
Today I’m thinking about the time United Healthcare suddenly decided to stop paying for my chemotherapy and didn’t bother telling me, so the nurses had to tell me when I checked in at the cancer center for my next treatment.
Totally unrelated to any current news, of course.— Kendall Brown (@kendallybrown) December 4, 2024
Shooting the UnitedHealthcare CEO is a terrible thing to do. It’s deeply immoral and solves nothing. At the same time, 76,000 Americans die every year because of the health insurance industry. I also mourn for them. And I don’t see any press coverage or concern for their deaths.
— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) December 6, 2024
When you shoot one man in the street it's murder.
When you kill thousands of people in hospitals by taking away their ability to get treatment you're an entrepreneur. https://t.co/rbDQz47zM2— Please Log Off From This Hellsite (@LogOffAlready) December 4, 2024
Saw mainstream news coverage about the killing of the CEO of United Healthcare on TikTok and I think political and industry leaders might want to read the comments and think hard about them pic.twitter.com/RuBii9KFH4
— Tobita Chow (@tobitac) December 4, 2024
