Health Care Companies Reassess Patient Experiences After Deadly Murder
Health care companies are taking a step back to better understand patients’ experiences after a powerful U.S. health insurance executive was murdered last week. The murder of UnitedHealth’s insurance arm CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot and killed outside a hotel in Manhattan, has sparked outrage among Americans grappling with the high cost and complexity of medical care.
The shooting has also led to a rethinking of security measures and executive risks for health insurance companies, with some removing leadership team photos from their websites and considering increased security measures. Pfizer Chief Sustainability Officer Caroline Roan called the murder “a tragedy of epic proportions” and said that executives in the healthcare industry are reeling.
Amazon Pharmacy Chief Medical Officer Vin Gupta expressed his frustration with the state of the healthcare system, saying, “Our health system needs to be better … There’s a lot of things that should cause a lot of outrage.” He and other executives from Pfizer and Amazon stressed the need for a larger dialogue about the healthcare system and the importance of not normalizing extreme actions like the murder.
The suspect, Luigi Mangione, was arrested this week with a handwritten manifesto that revealed his motivations, which he believed were based on perceived corruption in the healthcare industry. A New York City Police report analyzing the document concluded that Mangione viewed the killing as a justified response to the perceived corruption.
Recent data show that patients are facing increased denials of claims, higher premiums, and unexpected costs for medical care. Insurers work to negotiate down increased fees from doctors and hospitals, as well as costly prescription drugs and medical devices. Despite these challenges, Gupta emphasized, “There cannot be this false moral equivalence in our discourse. We should be focused on the bigger goal, which is that we can do something better here together.”