Reddit thread on UnitedHealthcare CEO shot dead deleted as doctors celebrate murder – Times of India

A Reddit threat on the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO had to be deleted as it became celebratory.

The moderators of r/medicine closed a thread after several doctors and medical professionals celebrated the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by an unidentified man. The medical professionals condemned UHC’s track record in denying insurance claims. Spoof rejection letters were allegedly framed saying that Thompson’s coverage was declined because e”you failed to obtain prior authorization before seeking care for the gunshot wound to your chest” — mocking the rejection letters from the insurance company.
“Thoughts and prayers. This is someone who has participated in social murder on a mass scale,” one medical student wrote. “Do not spare a tear for a capitalist whose job it is to oversee a machine that does its best to deny healthcare to people who pay for it,” another wrote.
The moderators of the deleted Reddit post told DailyBeast that the post was removed as it was unproductive, “a time suck for the mods, without a good source, being brigade, arguably against Reddit’s terms of service and featured too many inappropriate comments. It wasn’t because of criticism of business practices. We criticize insurance business practices frequently here.”
The 50-year-old was shot dead in a premeditated murder as the killer appeared well aware of Brian Thompson’s schedule Wednesday. Before the shooting, the killer stayed at a hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan — sharing a room with two strangers.
The killer fired many shots and the bullet casings left at the murder scene had three words engraved on them: delay, deny and depose. Though the message was not immediately clear, the words echo the title of a 2010 book by Jay M Feinman, a professor emeritus at Rutgers Law School, “Delay, Deny, Defend”. The book was about insurance companies that don’t pay claims. Feinman refused to comment on the eerie link between his book title and the message left by the killer.
Net worth of Brian Thompson
Brian Thompson worked in UnitedHealthcare for more than 20 years and became the CEO in April 2021. He received a total compensation of $10.2 million last year, with $1 million in base pay augmented by substantial cash and stock grants. The company’s profits rose on his watch, jumping to more than $16 billion last year from $12 billion in 2021. Thompson owned about $20 million of UnitedHealth Group shares as of late September.