“When other’s human lives are deemed worthless, it is not surprising to have others view your life of no value as well,” wrote one medical doctor, whose identity the Daily Beast confirmed.
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Moderators Delete Reddit Thread as Doctors Torch Dead UnitedHealthcare CEO
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“When other’s human lives are deemed worthless, it is not surprising to have others view your life of no value as well,” wrote one medical doctor, whose identity the Daily Beast confirmed.
Sean Craig
Updated Dec. 5 2024 3:13PM EST / Published Dec. 5 2024 10:58AM EST
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Illustration by Eric Faison/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
Doctors in one of the Internet’s top medical communities have turned on the
murdered UnitedHealthcare (UHC) CEO Brian Thompson in such brutal fashion that
Reddit moderators deleted a thread on the killing.
The moderators of r/medicine closed the thread,
posted Wednesday after news broke that Thompson was shot dead outside the New York Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, after it racked up over 500 replies.
The commenters overwhelmingly criticized—and satirized—the
insurer’s alleged denial of coverage to sick and dying Americans in order to juice profits.
The top comment, which received hundreds of supporting upvotes from other users, mocked UHC’s notorious track record for refusing to pay out insurance claims and is written as a lengthy, spoof rejection letter from the company.
Addressed to an unnamed applicant—following “a careful review of the claim submitted for emergency services on December 4, 2024″—it informs them they are being rejected for coverage because “you failed to obtain prior authorization before seeking care for the gunshot wound to your chest.”
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“If you would like to appeal the fatal gunshot, please call 1-800-555-1234 with case # 123456789P to initiate a peer to peer within 48 hours of the fatal gun shot,” wrote one user.
Another paraphrased the early 20th Century trade union lawyer
Clarence Darrow: ″I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."
Dozens and dozens more expressed similar sentiment.
That original thread may have been deleted but criticism of Thompson on Reddit has not died down. Roughly 16 hours after the deleted post was made in r/medicine, another user made a
separate post soliciting thoughts on the murder. It has remained up.
As with the previous thread, some comments contain humor or outrage expressed at UHC.
But others—including from doctors and medical professionals—offer incisive and unsparing critiques of Thompson’s business practices.
One medical doctor, whose identity the Daily Beast confirmed, commented with sympathy for Thompson’s family and said the killer should be charged with murder, but then wondered about the damage the CEO had done.
“I cannot even guess how many person-years UHC has taken from patients and their families through denials,” they wrote. “It has to be on the order of millions. His death won’t make that better, but it’s hard for me to sympathize when so many people have suffered because of his company.”
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“What has bothered me the most is people that put «fiduciary responsibility» (eg profits) above human lives, none more so than this company as run by him," wrote another medical doctor, who also spoke to the Daily Beast to confirm their identity. “When other’s human lives are deemed worthless, it is not surprising to have others view your life of no value as well.”
The moderators of the subreddit told the Daily Beast, in a message, that they removed the original post “because it was unproductive, a time suck for the mods, without a good source, being brigaded, arguably against Reddit’s [terms of service] and [featured] too many inappropriate comments.”
The site’s communities are moderated by teams of volunteers.
“It wasn’t because of criticism of business practices,” the statement added. “We criticize insurance business practices frequently here.”
Under Thompson’s leadership, UHC faced intense criticism for being one of America’s most ruthlessly profit-minded moneymaking healthcare firms.
According to research by ValuePenguin citing in-network claim data, it “is the worst insurance company for paying claims with about one-third of claims denied.”
In September, a Senate report excoriated UHC and two other large insurers, Humana and CVS, for allegedly
denying patients access to post-acute care in order to increase profits.
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UHC is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, the country’s largest healthcare conglomerate, which made $371 billion in revenue last year, when Thompson’s compensation was $10 million.
Police have yet to attribute a motive to the masked killer who shot Thompson outside an investor meeting in what NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch said was likely a “premeditated, preplanned, targeted attack.”
Law enforcement officials
found the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” on shell casings recovered from the crime scene and are
reportedly examining whether they can be connected to a motive involving insurance companies.
