Sen. Elizabeth Warren rationalized the stunning public reaction to the gunning down of former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week as a rebuke of his industry, even as she condemned the violence.
“The visceral response from people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system,” Warren (D-Mass.) told the Huffington Post in an interview.
“Violence is never the answer, but people can only be pushed so far.”
In a subsequent statement, the Massachusetts senator added: “Violence is never the answer. Period. I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.”
Last Wednesday morning, a gunman shot Thompson, 50, in the back of his head outside a Sixth Avenue hotel.
UnitedHealthcare is the largest private health insurance provider in the US.;
Since then, authorities have apprehended tech whiz Luigi Mangione, 26, as the suspected assassin.
Investigators have speculated that Mangione may have had a grudge against the healthcare industry as evidenced by an X-ray photo on his X account and the fact that he had books involving chronic back pain on his Goodreads account reading list, sources previously told The Post.
Strikingly, an outcry of netizens has cheered the slaying of Thompson, ripping into the US healthcare system. This included former Washington Post media journalist Taylor Lorenz taking “joy” in the killing.
“This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone,” Warren added to the outlet.
The Massachusetts senator has long decried the US healthcare system and advocated for a Medicare for All-style program.
She championed this during her failed 2020 Democratic presidential primary bid, though critics argued that her pay-fors in the program were very dubious.
Mangione has since been charged over the assassination of Thompson, including one count of second-degree murder. Bullet casings near where the shooting took place reportedly had “deny,” “defend,” and “depose,” written on them.
That’s an apparent reference to the 2010 book, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it,” authored by former Rutgers Law professor Jay Feinman.
Amid the populist uproar over the assassination of Thompson, several Democrats have decried the positive reaction as perverse.
“The public execution of an innocent man and father of two is indefensible, not ‘inevitable.’ Condoning and cheering this on says more about YOU than the situation of health insurance,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) wrote on X in response to a New York magazine headline.
“The cold-blooded murder of the United Healthcare CEO is not cause for celebration or an ‘opportunity to vent.’ It is barbarism for which there should be no tolerance. Any civilization that celebrates cold-blooded murder is sowing the seeds of its own downfall,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) wrote on X.
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