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I am torn. I have the devil whispering in one ear, telling me to join with the masses hailing the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and shouting that he had it coming to him. And I have the angel speaking in my other ear, reminding me that physicians must rise above violence and hate. A man is dead after all.
So, where do we go from here?
On the one hand, I shed no tears for Thompson. The man made millions off the suffering of others. More than $10 million last year, in fact. Likewise, every penny of the $22 billion in profit made by parent company UnitedHealth Group in 2023 was at the expense of the suffering of others.
I have no small amount of schadenfreude for what has happened to him. Sometimes, I even find myself wanting to crack jokes at his expense. Is Hell going to require a 2-night qualifying stay prior to admission? Does he have a skilled demonic need that would merit admission to Hell? Others have had similar reactions, posting online comments like, “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network,” and “Prior authorization is needed for thoughts and prayers.”
As physicians, I understand how easy it is to sit back and take some pleasure in the death of a man whose leadership of an insurance company led to the untold suffering of hundreds of thousands of our patients. Patients we care for every day.
Yet, I am torn. This guy was my age (he was 50 years old, and I’m 49). He has a wife with two kids. His kids are 19 and 16 years old, near the same age as mine (in their teens). They’ve gotten bomb threats to their home. When they look on social media, they see nothing but hate directed at the man they loved — a man they called their husband, or Dad.
I hate everything that Thompson stood for. I hate everything that his company stands for and will likely continue to stand for. I expect that the UnitedHealth Group PR and legal teams will use his death as an excuse to stifle any substantive debate or legitimate criticism about UnitedHealthcare with the mantra of, “We need to cool the temperature of the conversation,” or some similar, hollow PR statement.
And yet, I find myself troubled by jumping on the bandwagon of hate.
Thompson was a human being, and we as physicians are supposed to have compassion for all. We are to care for all — saints or sinners, good or bad, demonic or angelic. What they do or did is irrelevant. We treat murderers, rapists, and politicians alongside charity workers, victims of crime, and the saintly. What allows us to do that is the compassion we have for people. It’s what keeps us in this profession, despite the machinations of companies like UnitedHealthcare and people like Thompson, and whatever corporate leader rises to replace him.
So, what I’m calling upon us, as physicians, to do is to remember that we are the adults in the room. We are the profession that has the moral high ground opposite companies like UnitedHealthcare and people like Thompson. We are supposed to be better.
We need to take this opportunity to mourn the loss of another human being, taken by violence on our streets. We need to show compassion to his family.
We need to say with a single voice that we condemn the actions of Thompson and UnitedHealthcare as vehemently as we condemn the actions of his assassin. We need to warn that too many people — both patients and executives — will continue to suffer until insurance giants put the needs of the patient above those of the shareholder. While I don’t condone more killing or violence against health insurance executives, it’s not unlikely. In fact, it’s already happening. But it needs to be made clear that it’s not rhetoric or debate about insurance company malfeasance driving this action, but the companies’ own actions.
We as physicians need to be vocal, engaged, and seize this moment where the public is now engaged and the media watching, to make the case for why insurance in America is broken. We must also be above the fray.
So, while I hate UnitedHealthcare and Thompson’s policies, I mourn his death as I would mourn any death, and I truly feel deeply for the loss and pain that his family must be feeling at this moment. I put them in my prayers and I hope that healing, albeit slowly, does eventually come to them. I also pray that health executives everywhere use this as a moment to not only beef up their security but also to ask, “Why?”
James Young, MD, is a family medicine physician and a nocturnist at Marshfield Clinic Hospital in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect any organization or company with which he is affiliated.