A sickness in the wake of insurance CEO's slaying

ANOTHER VIEW

The motivation for the brazen and seemingly premeditated assassination of a health insurance executive in midtown Manhattan remains under investigation. The likeliest theory is that a hooded gunman, armed with a pistol and apparent silencer, killed 50-year-old Brian Thompson because he was chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, which provides health insurance coverage to more than 50 million Americans. Shell casings found at the scene - upon which the words "delay" and "deny" had been scrawled - imply that this killing stemmed from a grievance related to coverage decisions by Mr. Thompson's company or others like it.

As most Americans quickly recognized, there is no justification for taking a life in this manner - yet on social media, expressions of not just understanding but support for the crime also gained traction in the aftermath of Mr. Thompson's death. Many people made crude and depraved jokes, such as "my condolences are out-of network." Others said flatly that the insurance executive deserved what happened to him, comparing the victim to a serial killer.

Even academics and journalists chimed in. CBS's morning show aired a segment on Friday on the "deep frustration with the health insurance industry" that highlighted several angry TikTok videos. "I'm having a hard time being empathetic," a woman says in one of them.

Céline Gounder, a CBS News medical contributor, said vigilante justice is never warranted but added: "We've gotten to a point where health care is so inaccessible and unaffordable, people are justified in their frustrations."

Online sleuths trying to crowdsource clues to find the killer were attacked as snitches and narcs. "Anyone who helps to identify the shooter is an enemy of the people," said a post on X with more than 110,000 likes and nearly 9,200 retweets.

UnitedHealth Group posted a condolence note on its Facebook page for Mr. Thompson's family, but it had to disable comments as 84,000 users reacted with a laughter emoji. Police said there were false bomb threats against homes owned by Mr. Thompson hours after he was killed on Wednesday.

Those who excuse or celebrate Mr. Thompson's killing reveal an ends-justify-the-means sentiment that is flatly inconsistent with stable democracy. An all-things-are-warranted mindset also animated the mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and campus protesters who have hailed the "martyrs" of Hamas - groups very different in their degrees of moral transgression and practical impact, but similar in their embrace of extreme measures to right perceived wrongs. To repeat: Most Americans probably reject this kind of thinking. But social media makes what would have previously been ignorable fringe expressions more prominent.

Some who do not countenance the killing itself have nevertheless tried to treat it as an occasion for policy debate about claim denial rates by health insurance companies, an admittedly legitimate issue. That's fine in principle, but we're skeptical that this particular moment lends itself to nuanced discussion of a complicated, and heavily regulated, industry.

Controlling health-care costs requires difficult trade-offs, the essential one being between access and cost. Insurers, whose profits are capped by federal law, must contend with consumer demand for ready access to high-priced specialists and prescription drugs - and, at the same time, premiums low enough that people can afford coverage. Many dislike the way the nation's private-sector-led insurance system manages the trade-offs. But even the most generous state-run health systems in other countries also have to face them. Certain forms of care are delayed, or not even offered, to conserve finite resources for the treatments that are believed to deliver the most value for money.

Americans' best response is to support leaders and legislation that improve health-care outcomes by restraining premiums, cutting unnecessary costs and investing in care that works.

A debate on one small piece of this complex set of issues will occur next year, when Congress is to consider whether to keep temporary Obamacare enhancements that have boosted enrollment.

The worst response, on the other hand, is what happened on Wednesday.

Of necessity, corporate chieftains are already reacting by fortifying their personal security, in case the shooting inspires copycat violence. Other insurers are deleting images of their leaders or removing webpages that list their executives. This will make them more insulated from the public and their customers. Just like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when Manhattan was also Ground Zero, it will mean a new normal of a more hardened society: extra barriers, less openness and higher security costs, which will need to be passed along to consumers.

The foreseeable repercussions mean that this violent attack on one man is really an attack on society itself. Murder is like that.

- The Washington Post