Folk hero or heartless killer?

When a 50-year-old father of two was gunned down on a New York City street last week, the consensus should have been pretty simple: That's horrible.

But it turned out that the man who was killed, Brian Thompson, was CEO of UnitedHealthcare, an insurance company whose profits have soared in the last few years and which is notorious for denying medical claims (it denies 34% of those submitted, significantly higher than other major health insurers).

Almost right away, there were two sides: The killer is a ruthless criminal who deserves to go to prison, or the CEO was a heartless executive who, if he didn't exactly deserve to die, certainly won't be missed.

Social media exploded, with posters showing no sympathy. “Thoughts and deductibles to the family,” one TikToker wrote. “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”

Another wrote on X: “Brian Thompson ran a company based off exploiting people during the most vulnerable times in their life. I'm not sad he's dead.”

And comedian Kristin Chirico wrote: “A good lesson here is that you should live your life in such a way that when you die, nobody pulls out a spreadsheet to mathematically explain why they’re happy you’re dead.”

The glee was most palpable on Reddit, where a forum that describes itself as “a virtual lounge for physicians and other medical professionals” had to be shut down by moderators because users posted a spree of macabre jokes.

The killing prompted UnitedHealthcare to take down its "About Us" webpage, which featured short biographies of its top executives. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Medica quickly followed suit. A friend of mine, who served in an elite FBI squad and now works in personal protection, said his company's phones have been ringing off the hook with executives seeking security.

As if on cue, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield announced it would no longer pay for anesthesia care if a surgery or procedure goes beyond a time limit. There was an immediate hue and cry, and the health care provider quickly reversed course.

The killing split America, but not by race or sex: It became a window into the haves and the have-nots.

"What we see in this country is that the number one cause of bankruptcy is health-care-related expenses," said Dr. Celine Gounder, CBS News medical contributor. "We've gotten to a point where health care is so inaccessible and unaffordable, people are justified in their frustrations."

The haves were frightened because the killer quickly attained Robin Hood status. “It’s being framed as some opening blow in a broader class war, which is very concerning as it heightens the threat environment for similar actors to engage in similar acts of violence,” Alex Goldenberg, a senior adviser at the Network Contagion Research Institute, which tracks online threats, told The New York Times.

And yet the have-nots cheered the shooter: The coat he was wearing went viral on the internet and soon after, a group of about 30 people gathered on a New York street dressed like him.

Then there were the surveys. On Monday, just hours before a suspect was arrested by police, a Gallup Poll found that 62% of those polled believe the federal government should make sure all Americans have health care coverage. That was the highest percentage in more than a decade. And just 44% said the quality of health care is excellent (11%) or good (33%), down 10 percentage points since 2020

Mark Bertolini, the CEO of Oscar Health who also once ran Aetna, said he understood the sentiment on display by Americans who weren't appalled by the killing.

"While the act in itself is unconscionable, the behavior of the American public, and reaction to it, is understandable given how frustrated people are at the state of our healthcare system in the United States," Mr. Bertolini told Yahoo News.

But the shooting of a health care CEO and the subsequent debate exposed the vast disparity between the haves and the have nots. It also laid bare the fact that many Americans are so frustrated with the state of health care in the country that they're not surprised — or even that angry — that someone killed a CEO.

Since the arrest of the suspect, both sides are penning their own narratives. And there's precedent to believe that in a week or two, the whole story will just disappear. But in reality, the issue of overly expensive health care will just go back into the shadows, unreported.

And rather than the end, it may just be the beginning. “I do apologize for any strife or traumas, but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming,” the man charged with murder in Thompson's killing, Luigi Mangione, wrote in his manifesto.

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.