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The man accused of murdering the CEO of the largest health insurance company in the United States was denied bail that he says he'll fight extradition to New York. He was apprehended by law enforcement on Monday after a five day manhunt.
Earlier this morning, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, members of the Altuna Police Department arrested Luigi Mangioni, a twenty six year old mail on firearms charges.
Those officers found Mangioni in a McDonald's in that central Pennsylvania city with a fake ID and a firearm. The NYPD set is consistent with the weapon used in the murder of Brian Thompson, who ran United Healthcare.
Additionally, officers recovered a handwritten document that speaks to both his motivation and mindset.
Mangioni's three page manifesto included criticism of the US healthcare industry, which has added more fuel to an ugly outpouring of vitriol online. Since the shooting, There's been a deluge of posts on social media with a clear theme rage at the healthcare industry and solidarity with the shooter. Not the victim. In comments after Mangioni's arrest, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro addressed that he acknowledged that people have, as he put it,
real frustration with our healthcare system. But Shapiro said the killer is not a hero and he should not be hailed.
Violence can never be used to address political differences, or to address a substantive difference, or to try and prove some ideological point. That is not what we do in a civilized society.
Law enforcement officials say their investigation is ongoing and there are still questions about the shooter's motive. Rightley Griffin covers the healthcare industry for Bloomberg, and she's focusing on how United Healthcare is dealing with shock.
That is twofold one to lose a longtime colleague, a senior executive, the person who ran their largest division, Brian Thompson, a twenty year veteran of the company, and to the ensuing outrage on social media, the vitriol, the normalization of violence at times coupled with real discontent across the country, and so there's a version in pr crisis for the company as it deals with the loss of this employee.
This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura on today's episode, why the killing of Brian Thompson is fueling a torrent of rage, and how United Healthcare and other companies are responding to the attack and its aftermath. In the hours since Luigi Mangioni was arrested, law enforcement and journal lists, including Bloomberg's Riley Griffin, have been piecing together what they can about the suspect's life.
Luigi Mangioni was the valedictorian at his thirty seven thousand a year all boys prep school in Baltimore. He went to the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a data engineer at a place called Truecar, and thereafter he fell a little bit off the map.
This is still an active investigation with a lot of unanswered questions. What is law enforcement said about motive?
One thing Mangioni wrote was, quote unquote, frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. He juxtaposed the high cost of US healthcare with declining life expectancy rates. He clearly was thinking about the healthcare system, and he said he acted alone, was self funded.
Quote.
Evidently, I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty. You know, we're learning in real time more details about what the manifesto said and how law enforcement is viewing this horrific act.
You and other colleagues of ours here at Bloomberg have written about how this attack spawned, as you put it, a hate machine that's only getting louder the Internet.
If you look at X formerly known as Twitter, if you look on Instagram, there has been a lot of support for the shooter from Mangioni. You've had some postings that are intended to be humorous and some you've had real outrage where folks have pointed to claims that have been denied and life saving care that they haven't been able to access via the insurance industry denials of care. So I think the spectrum is vast, but the response
has been complex. Even yesterday, when Mangioni was taken into custody, you know, we saw posts online. It was trending free him on X. The social media dynamic to this story is an important one too. What does it mean to see the memification of everything from an election cycle to a murder. That's something I'm going to be reflecting on in coming weeks.
Rightley, you've covered healthcare for years. I know your focus has been on pharmaceutical companies. What do you think the reaction we've seen says about the relationship people in the United States have with the healthcare industry.
I haven't seen a moment like this covering pharma. There were a lot of moments where we saw discontents, and you know, talk about vitriol on social media, conspiracy theories throughout COVID certainly spawned some of that too, But the act of violence that underlies all of the public discourse is unique and tragic and awful. But people feel I don't know. It was long evident that the pharmaceutical industry was one of the most hated in the world of
corporate America. But pharma delivers life saving treatments. You know, they invent these cures, gene therapies, medicines people rely on. I think what's happening here is the real disconnect where people don't see the value brought by health insurers who often play these middleman and have sharp elbows and negotiations that often can deny care.
And United Healthcare is denial of coverage. Group pushback before its chief executive was killed.
United health in the past year has faced a great amount of scrutiny, the.
FDC suing three prominent drug benefit managers alleging a scheme that elevated insulin prices.
So it's a longstanding issue. It's at times easy to say a uniquely American issue. Our health insurance system looks a lot different from those in other countries, particularly those were public healthcare.
Is broad I'd love to get a sense from you of the place this company, United Healthcare occupies in that industry broadly, in health insurance more narrowly. How big a company is this?
United health is undoubtedly the large just player in healthcare by market cap. This is a more than five hundred billion dollar company. I don't know that many recognize how big it is in corporate America. I mean, this isn't even just about healthcare. It's one of the biggest companies in the world.
Coming up after the break, the latest reporting on what happened before and after Brian Thompson was killed and how United Healthcare has responded to both the shooting and its aftermath. Since Brian Thompson was killed in New York, Bloomberg's Riley Griffin and her colleagues have spent a lot of time figuring out what happened.
On that December morning, Thompson was headed to United Health Groups Investor Day. These are annual events that companies have to communicate to investors in analysts about the current state of their business. He was en route to his hair and makeup appointment for this investor Day, but he never arrived to that appointment, and so as other senior executives were headed up into the building, they noticed several cop
cars on fifty fourth Street. They were redirected to other entrances, and yet they thought to themselves, really, this is another day in New York, which is relatable if you've ever spent time in Midtown Manhattan. The sirens are blaring, there's a always commotion, and they started to notice his absence. It wasn't typical for Thompson, a two decade plus veteran of the company, to show up late to a moment like this. They speculated perhaps he had overslept or was sick.
They discussed sending someone to go check on him. They came up with a plan to cover his part of the presentation, and so Investor Days started and just as it was starting, and CEO Andrew Whittiy of The Broader Company was going on to speak on stage. As he delivered some of the earliest remarks, a couple of executives got a call to come down that there had been a security emergency.
That's when they learned Riley says their colleague had been killed.
Andrew Whitdy, the CEO, was pulled out of the room. Who is distraught, A pretty traumatic moment. And shortly thereafter there were guests in the room as investors in analysts received notification on their phone news of the executives passing, and so right thereafter he cut the investor day short and from there it was about getting the executives out of the room.
What have you learned since this attack about how companies, including United Healthcare approach safety and how they've changed their protocols.
Yeah, so certainly we've heard from the New York Police Department that right now they're identifying a heightened risk in part because of the rhetoric online. January is worthcoming. The JP Morgan Healthcare Conference is a time where all the executives of major healthcare companies, you know, convene. We're trying
to better understand the security environment here. We still have lingering questions as to why Brian Thompson had arrived without security, whether that was typical, but the company is shoring up security at its offices currently. We've seen memos that suggest that is underway. External visitors aren't allowed into some of these offices at.
This time, and Riley says United Healthcare is taking down information about executives that had been available online as.
The company was grappling with how to ensure the safety of its other senior executives and even board members. The company took down both of those bio pages, the pictures and the bios that were associated with them, so and obscuring of information around who else you know exists in the C suite. It'll be interesting to see if other companies do the same, But that was another measure the company took that day to bolster security.
And as Riley says, the healthcare industry has had to respond to the attack, but also to the vitriol we've seen since. Do you have much insight into if there will be a more concerted effort by this company or the industry more broadly to respond to what we've seen percolating on social media.
It is our burning question at this moment. We have not heard of plans to come out on the offensive and take a more active approach to engaging the public and their discontents. You know, something I in my colleagues have heard from current employees is that's a great frustration. They feel that this is the time to engage. You know, some have suggested perhaps an editorial in the New York Times.
I mean, there's all these different ideas about ways to directly respond, but we haven't seen that beyond statements here and there. We do know a crisis communications firm has been hired. We also know in the wake of these events, meetings have been canceled, presentations have been canceled. Engagement not with the public, but with other businesses has been put on pause.
You've written that the shooting and its aftermath have been a wake up call for health insurance companies. Is this likely to change anything about the way that they do business?
Yeah? So, I just want to take you through one example that might be a quick tell, but Elevance another company scrapped this plan that really drew a lot of controversy as it was made public amid this moment following the shooting, the plan was to enact time limits on anesthesia coverage for certain surgeries, and there was just this
public outcry and opposition from physician groups. It's hard to say direct causation or correlation, but this policy change had been destined to go into effect in February for members of Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield in New York, Connecticut, and Missouri, And even though this had been announced last month, the criticism bubbled up in the wake of the shooting,
and ultimately they walked back that policy. They said that part of this was due to misinformation, and because of the misinformation, they decided not to proceed with this policy change. But it is a good window into a company that had to take action in the wake of a public outcry. And so I have no crystal ball, David. It's hard to read the future right now, but there are signs that companies are having to listen to the public and
public sentiment in this moment. So what else could that judge up and what else could that change about how they cover Americans health care?
Riley, thank you very much. This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gera. This episode was produced by Julia Press. It was edited by Tim Annett and Naomi Shaven, who's our senior producer. It was fact checked by Adriana Tapia and mixed and sound designed by Alex Sagura. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole beemster Boor. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and
review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow