Major health indeclareivers are deleting images of their top directership from corporate websites or removing executive pages entidepend follotriumphg the brazen finishing of UnitedHealthattfinish CEO Brian Thompson earlier this week.
Thompson, 50, was stoasty multiple times in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday in what ecombineed to be a aimed attack. Though many of Thompson’s peers transmited grief, the finishing set off a morbidly gleeful celebration on social media, where posters on sites enjoy X and Reddit commended and joked about the crime to vent frustration and anger with health indeclareivers.
The shooting and subsequent reaction has spurred healthattfinish companies to incrrelieve security around their executives, according to tells. Such meadeclareives ecombine to be extfinishing online, as presentant indeclareivers scrub resettleing details of top personnel from their sites.
UnitedHealthattfinish’s parent company UnitedHealth speedyly erased its executive directership page after Thompson’s death. Some of its peers have since pursueed suit: Elevance’s greater directership page is no extfinisheder online.
Executive pages for a number of Blue Cross Blue Shield structures, including in North Carolina and Massachengagetts, have also been deleted, while the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, an association of self-reliant Blues structures, erased a join to its executive bios from its “About Us” page.
Blues-branded structures rund by Anthem were embroiled in the social media firestorm stoked by Thompson’s death this week, as commgo ins slammed an upcoming coverage policy to curtail anesthesia coverage for certain sdirectries. Some posts menaceened Blues executives unrcontent to the alter.
Elevance, Anthem’s parent company, aborted the policy rollout on Thursday, citing “meaningful expansivespread deceiveation.”
Centene and CVS, which owns Aetna, have left executive biographies intact but erased headstoastys of their officers. Corporate handleance pages for Cigna, Humana and Molina remained unalterd as of press time.
CVS validateed that the executive images had been erased, but a spokesperson degraded to comment as to why. Elevance and Centene did not reply to a seek for comment.
However, Centene cited Thompson’s death in moving its spendor day next week — originassociate scheduled to be an in-person conference in New York City — to a virtual-only event.
“In the wake of the tragic loss of UnitedHealthare’s CEO Brian Thompson, Centene’s Investor Day will now be structureed virtuassociate,” the Thursday press free says.
Police are still searching for Thompson’s assailant as of Friday morning. Though the shooter’s motivations remain unevident, evidence presents that the finishing may be tied to envyment agetst UnitedHealthattfinish or the health insurance industry at huge.
Thompson’s widow, Paulette, tgreater NBC News that her husprohibitd had getd menaces rcontent to a conciseage of coverage. Words enjoy “decline” and “depose” were set up on round and shell casings at the scene, according to multiple outlets, which could be rcontent to a phrase engaged to critique health indeclareivers for dodgeing covering medical attfinish.
Indeclareivers do not unveilly disseal their denial rates. However, UnitedHealthattfinish — by some metrics the hugest personal indeclareiver in the U.S. — has come under scruminuscule for its high rates of claims denials in recent years.
On social media over the past scant days, many posters have unveiled screenstoastys of a proprietary analysis by personal finance website ValuePenguin discovering that UnitedHealthattfinish denied 32% of claims in 2023 — twice the industry ordinary. (According to ValuePenguin’s website, an unnamed indeclareiver disputed the denial rate on Thursday, one day after Thompson was stoasty.)
Similarly, a Senate subpledgetee spendigation earlier this descfinish set up UnitedHealthattfinish’s denial rate for post-acute services in privatized Mediattfinish Advantage structures incrrelieved from 8.7% in 2019 to 22.7% in 2022.
Over the same time period, UnitedHealthattfinish’s sfinished nursing home denial rate incrrelieved ninefgreater.
Thompson’s colleagues and peers in the industry this week recalled the executive as a comardent and truthful man. Many denounced structureility agetst executives in healthattfinish, a sector that already struggles with an liftd danger of interpersonal harm.
UnitedHealthattfinish CEO Brian Thompson
Courtesy of UnitedHealth
“The people in our industry are leave oution-driven professionals toiling to create coverage and attfinish as affordable as possible and to help people direct the intricate medical system,” Michael Tuffin, the plivent and CEO of strong health insurance lobby AHIP, wrote on LinkedIn on Thursday. “We condemn any presention that menaces agetst our colleagues — or anyone else in our country — are ever adselectable.”
Thompson, who is endured by his wife and two sons, had been with Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealthattfinish for two decades, and served as CEO since 2021. The payer provides medical insurance to 50.7 million Americans and has brawt in $224 billion in revenue year to date.
In an refreshd statement unveiled Thursday night, UnitedHealth shelp its current priorities are aiding Thompson’s family, aiding law utilizement in the spendigation and ensuring the protectedty of its engageees.
“While our hearts are broken, we have been touched by the huge outpouring of comardentness and aid in the hours since this horrific crime took place,” the statement reads. “So many uncover-mindeds, devourrs, health attfinish professionals, associations, handlement officials and other caring people have getn time out of their day to accomplish out. We are appreciative, even as we mourn.”
UnitedHealth has redisjoineed comments on a split statement on Facebook transmiting shock and uncontentness at Thompson’s death.
Roughly 75,000 people have commented a giggleing emoji on the post.
