No Place for Violence: Reflecting on the Tragic Death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

No matter how deep our grievances or how righteous our anger may feel, violence has no place in our society. The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is a tragedy that demands our collective condemnation. What happened in New York City was not an act of justice; it was a killing that has left a family reeling.

I once held an executive role much like Brian Thompson’s. I sat in simiar meetings, developing and carrying out strategies that impacted millions of people. I may have come to see the system for what it truly is – and why it is the way it is – but no executive — or anyone else — deserves to be murdered, and the person who carried out this horrific act is not a hero. However, this corporate assassination is a symptom of a nation buckling under the weight of systemic dysfunction.

This act of violence did not occur in a vacuum. UnitedHealth Group, and its subsidiary UnitedHealthcare, are corporate behemoths on a scale the world has never seen. Their immense power has come with a human cost. No entity in history, certainly not a company traded on the New York Stock Exchange where profit margins are all that matter — has been in a position to deny or delay essential health care on a scale that UnitedHealth does day in and day out. And the truth is, UnitedHealth’s actions are not the result of one man’s work. Instead, they are a result of Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations and demands, the outsized role of money in politics that prevents needed public policy changes from being made, and many other factors that result from what researchers and reform advocates refer to as the “financialization” of health care in the United States. 

The harm inflicted on countless Americans is not merely a talking point – it’s a lived reality for millions of us. Families drowned in medical debt; patients denied life-saving treatments; and clinicians and facilities pushed out of networks, leaving communities without access to the health care they need and deserve. These are not abstract issues. They are examples of tragedies that play out day-after-day all across this country.

It bears repeating that this act of violence does not address the many injustices that are unique to the U.S. health care system. Reforming health care requires collective action, advocacy and systemic change — not the targeting of individuals, no matter how powerful they are.

That said, it also bears repeating that the outpouring of anger, and in some cases grim satisfaction, over this tragedy reflects the depth of frustration Americans feel toward Big Insurance, which has erected barrier after barrier to care so that more money is available to reward shareholders.

But as we undertake the work to dismantle those barriers, we all have to remember our shared humanity. We are in the fight for a better health care system because of our deep desire to help our fellow man and belief that a better system is possible. Brian Thompson’s death is a loss. And his life — like every life — mattered. It is on all of us to work for a future where no one feels so desperate, so abandoned by the system, that they see violence as their only recourse.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Earlier this afternoon, authorities arrested a suspect for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Altoona, Pennsylvania.