Two months ago, UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead after an investor conference in midtown Manhattan. Within hours, the internet was awash with the murderer’s credentials and pictures. Among the many questions posed, a single one united them all: how could someone so “promising” commit such a heinous act?
The young man, identified as Luigi Mangione, has become a cultural spectacle and online hero. Memes and TikTok videos have splashed across our screens in recent weeks, most of which deplore the health insurance industry, accompanied by the occasional fixation on Mangione’s physical appearance by people labeled as “#LuigiStans”. In contrast, CEOs and public intellectuals were outraged at the outrage, which raises the question: how can our society justify such a violent act of crime? Surely violence is never the answer?
In an op-ed titled “The health system is flawed. Let’s fix it”, newly appointed UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty attempts to do some damage control through three points. First, he grieves the loss of Thompson and condemns the violent murder. Witty describes Thompson as a quintessential working-class man who became a millionaire and “tried to do his best to serve” the people. Second, Witty says his team is “struggling to make sense of” the vitriol directed at UnitedHealth. Lastly, he explains the myriad of ways in which the healthcare system is complex; how it’s become this way over decades; and how UnitedHealth is one of many actors in the system.
Each of these arguments stand in their own right, but they are truisms. The headline promises solutions, yet Witty’s reflection delivers none. He fails to acknowledge the systemic problems within UnitedHealth itself, missing an opportunity to address the anger fueling the online shockwaves. He almost leverages Thompson’s awful death to whitewash UnitedHealth’s well-documented and large-scale misconduct. Investigations by STAT and the government accuse UnitedHealth of pressuring doctors to inflate diagnoses through unreliable diagnostic tools: “Company managers pressured doctors to conduct more wellness visits and document as many conditions as possible, often leading to questionable diagnoses that allowed the company to extract higher payments from Medicare, which pays insurers more to cover sicker patients. Meanwhile, acutely ill patients struggled to schedule appointments.” The company is also being sued for allegedly using algorithms that deny care to older Americans. Add to this a data breach affecting 190 million people — one the company failed to disclose to victims — and the picture becomes clear: UnitedHealth prioritizes profit over patients.
If you are walking the halls of Harvard Business School, you believe in the potential for business to be a force for good. As the largest health insurer and fourth largest company in the United States, UnitedHealth is undoubtedly a force. But a force for what?
I want to be clear. There is no justification of murder no matter how noble the cause or how heinous the target. George Orwell spoke of the “unspeakable wrongness” of capital punishment – that is, cutting a life short when it is in full tide. Brian Thompson was not a legal criminal. And no matter what, he did not deserve to be killed.
But the sanctity of life is not the real point of contention between #LuigiStans and those labelling Thompson’s murder an “assassination.” Mischaracterizing this contention is part of the problem. It focuses on the individual death, when in fact many people die every day due to the depraved experience of being on health insurance in the U.S. #LuigiStans are not naïve to the wrongness of violence. They carry the maturity to critique the underlying conditions that led to such deplorable violence and are not distracted by the single act of violence against plutocrats. Thompson’s death, tragic as it was, is a flashpoint for their righteous anger against a company that monetizes human suffering. These supporters aren’t blind to moral nuance; they’re tired of platitudes. They reject Witty’s insistence on preserving Thompson’s legacy — a legacy that entrenches the status quo of prioritizing profits over people.
It’s not wrong to acknowledge both. In fact, it’s important to do so. #LuigiStans are exhausted from placations of how complex the system is and how no “one” actor can fix it. If UnitedHealth, a $500 billion behemoth, sincerely wanted to change the system instead of exploiting its leakages, it could. Famously, it began as a Minnesota startup and grew through strategic acquisitions and innovation. Surely it can leverage its ingenuity to lead systemic reform. Instead, UnitedHealth exists in infamy, ranking #2 last year in the Shkreli Awards, which were named after the pharmaceutical executive and investor who was imprisoned on three counts of fraud and labelled “the worst person” in 2015.
UnitedHealth’s mission is to “help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone.” Witty’s reckoning confirms that UnitedHealth is making the health system work, but only for itself.
Of course, let’s condemn violence. But let’s also recognize the daily grief of navigating a broken health system. Acknowledging this isn’t excusing Luigi Mangione — it’s having the astuteness to reject the binary bind Witty wants us to fall for. UnitedHealth and the overall healthcare system can change, but that requires us to reject the binaries, endure accusations of naivety, and unapologetically demand — and do — better.
Unnati Bose (MBA ’26) is originally from India but has called many places home. She graduated from Shri Ram College of Commerce with a degree in Economics. She has worked in social impact consulting, global health, and pharma. In her free time, she can be found asking questions of love, community, and popular culture on her substack, Uno’s Thought Scramble.
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