New York
CNN
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After police discovered the phrases “deny,” “defend” and “depose” printed on shell casings close to the location the place UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down, merchandise bearing these phrases began to look on-line.
The phrase may be linked to a 2010 e-book critiquing the medical health insurance trade titled, “Delay Deny Defend,” a typical description of the trade’s ways. Those phrases appeared on a lot of objects on Amazon’s retailer, together with hats, T-shirts and pint glasses.
The suspect within the case has garnered sympathy and on-line fandom partly due to folks’s issues with the medical health insurance trade. The majority of insured US adults had a minimum of one challenge, together with denial of claims, with their medical health insurance within the span of a 12 months, in accordance with a survey launched in June 2023 by KFF, a nonprofit well being coverage analysis group.
Amazon has pulled the merchandise from the web site for violating the corporate’s guidelines, in accordance with an individual acquainted with Amazon’s choice making. It’s unclear how many individuals purchased objects emblazoned with the phrase.
However, “deny, defend, depose” merchandise stays on sale on eBay. The phrase itself doesn’t violate its guidelines, however “objects that glorify or incite violence, together with those who rejoice the current homicide of UHC CEO Brian Thompson, are prohibited,” an organization spokesperson instructed CNN.
Police on Monday arrested Luigi Mangione, the suspect in Thompson’s killing. A police official instructed CNN that Mangione possessed a handwritten doc stating, “these parasites had it coming,” and expressing “in poor health will towards company America.”
Mangione was noticed at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and a McDonald’s worker known as the police. The restaurant’s web page on Google and Yelp has since been flooded with damaging evaluations, calling employees “rats” and “snitches.”
CNN 5 Things
One Thing: A Health Insurance CEO is Dead. Not Everyone Is Sad.
Following the brazen homicide of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City, some have been stunned by the dearth of sympathy proven by folks on-line. Those who comply with the healthcare trade intently, nonetheless, say the anger in the direction of the trade has been boiling for a very long time.
Guest: Elisabeth Rosenthal, Senior Contributing Editor at KFF Health News & creator, “An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back”
Dec 08, 2024 • 20 min
One now-deleted evaluation on Google that was noticed by Reuters mentioned the “location has rats within the kitchen that may make you sick and your insurance coverage isn’t going to cowl it.” A Google spokesperson mentioned that the “evaluations violate our insurance policies and are being eliminated.” Also, extra protections are being added to the profile web page to stop extra of those evaluations.
Commenters additionally shared an analogous sentiment on Yelp. However, Yelp turned off commenting on the McDonald’s location’s web page.
“While we don’t take a stand by hook or by crook in relation to this incident, we’ve quickly disabled the posting of content material to this web page as we work to research whether or not the content material you see right here displays precise shopper experiences somewhat than the current occasions,” in accordance with a pop-up on Yelp.
Fundraisers on GoFundMe additionally popped up for Mangione’s authorized fund; nonetheless, these have since been eliminated. A GoFundMe spokesperson mentioned that it “prohibits fundraisers for the authorized protection of violent crimes” and that donors have been refunded.
The killing has generated blended emotions on-line. In a Facebook put up by UnitedHealth Group expressing unhappiness about UnitedHealthcare CEO Thompson’s demise obtained 62,000 reactions — 57,000 of them laughing emojis. UnitedHealth Group is the father or mother firm of UnitedHealthcare, the division that Thompson ran.
“Limitations on entry to care attributable to claims denials have completely been a supply of frustration for a very long time,” mentioned Kaye Pestaina, KFF’s director of Program on Patient and Consumer Protections.
