Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The man accused of murdering the CEO of the largest
Speaker 2: health insurance company in the United States was denied bail
Speaker 2: that he says he'll fight extradition to New York. He
Speaker 2: was apprehended by law enforcement on Monday after a five
Speaker 2: day manhunt.
Speaker 1: Earlier this morning, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, members of the Altuna
Speaker 1: Police Department arrested Luigi Mangioni, a twenty six year old
Speaker 1: mail on firearms charges.
Speaker 2: Those officers found Mangioni in a McDonald's in that central
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania city with a fake ID and a firearm. The
Speaker 2: NYPD set is consistent with the weapon used in the
Speaker 2: murder of Brian Thompson, who ran United Healthcare.
Speaker 1: Additionally, officers recovered a handwritten document that speaks to both
Speaker 1: his motivation and mindset.
Speaker 2: Mangioni's three page manifesto included criticism of the US healthcare industry,
Speaker 2: which has added more fuel to an ugly outpouring of
Speaker 2: vitriol online. Since the shooting, There's been a deluge of
Speaker 2: posts on social media with a clear theme rage at
Speaker 2: the healthcare industry and solidarity with the shooter. Not the victim.
Speaker 2: In comments after Mangioni's arrest, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro addressed
Speaker 2: that he acknowledged that people have, as he put it,
Speaker 2: real frustration with our healthcare system. But Shapiro said the
Speaker 2: killer is not a hero and he should not be hailed.
Speaker 3: Violence can never be used to address political differences, or
Speaker 3: to address a substantive difference, or to try and prove
Speaker 3: some ideological point. That is not what we do in
Speaker 3: a civilized society.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement officials say their investigation is ongoing and there
Speaker 2: are still questions about the shooter's motive. Rightley Griffin covers
Speaker 2: the healthcare industry for Bloomberg, and she's focusing on how
Speaker 2: United Healthcare is dealing with shock.
Speaker 4: That is twofold one to lose a longtime colleague, a
Speaker 4: senior executive, the person who ran their largest division, Brian Thompson,
Speaker 4: a twenty year veteran of the company, and to the
Speaker 4: ensuing outrage on social media, the vitriol, the normalization of
Speaker 4: violence at times coupled with real discontent across the country,
Speaker 4: and so there's a version in pr crisis for the
Speaker 4: company as it deals with the loss of this employee.
Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David
Speaker 2: Gura on today's episode, why the killing of Brian Thompson
Speaker 2: is fueling a torrent of rage, and how United Healthcare
Speaker 2: and other companies are responding to the attack and its aftermath.
Speaker 2: In the hours since Luigi Mangioni was arrested, law enforcement
Speaker 2: and journal lists, including Bloomberg's Riley Griffin, have been piecing
Speaker 2: together what they can about the suspect's life.
Speaker 4: Luigi Mangioni was the valedictorian at his thirty seven thousand
Speaker 4: a year all boys prep school in Baltimore. He went
Speaker 4: to the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a data
Speaker 4: engineer at a place called Truecar, and thereafter he fell
Speaker 4: a little bit off the map.
Speaker 2: This is still an active investigation with a lot of
Speaker 2: unanswered questions. What is law enforcement said about motive?
Speaker 4: One thing Mangioni wrote was, quote unquote, frankly, these parasites
Speaker 4: simply had it coming. He juxtaposed the high cost of
Speaker 4: US healthcare with declining life expectancy rates. He clearly was
Speaker 4: thinking about the healthcare system, and he said he acted alone,
Speaker 4: was self funded.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 4: Evidently, I am the first to face it with such
Speaker 4: brutal honesty. You know, we're learning in real time more
Speaker 4: details about what the manifesto said and how law enforcement
Speaker 4: is viewing this horrific act.
Speaker 2: You and other colleagues of ours here at Bloomberg have
Speaker 2: written about how this attack spawned, as you put it,
Speaker 2: a hate machine that's only getting louder the Internet.
Speaker 4: If you look at X formerly known as Twitter, if
Speaker 4: you look on Instagram, there has been a lot of
Speaker 4: support for the shooter from Mangioni. You've had some postings
Speaker 4: that are intended to be humorous and some you've had
Speaker 4: real outrage where folks have pointed to claims that have
Speaker 4: been denied and life saving care that they haven't been
Speaker 4: able to access via the insurance industry denials of care.
Speaker 4: So I think the spectrum is vast, but the response
Speaker 4: has been complex. Even yesterday, when Mangioni was taken into custody,
Speaker 4: you know, we saw posts online. It was trending free
Speaker 4: him on X. The social media dynamic to this story
Speaker 4: is an important one too. What does it mean to
Speaker 4: see the memification of everything from an election cycle to
Speaker 4: a murder. That's something I'm going to be reflecting on
Speaker 4: in coming weeks.
Speaker 2: Rightley, you've covered healthcare for years. I know your focus
Speaker 2: has been on pharmaceutical companies. What do you think the
Speaker 2: reaction we've seen says about the relationship people in the
Speaker 2: United States have with the healthcare industry.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen a moment like this covering pharma. There
Speaker 4: were a lot of moments where we saw discontents, and
Speaker 4: you know, talk about vitriol on social media, conspiracy theories
Speaker 4: throughout COVID certainly spawned some of that too, But the
Speaker 4: act of violence that underlies all of the public discourse
Speaker 4: is unique and tragic and awful. But people feel I
Speaker 4: don't know. It was long evident that the pharmaceutical industry
Speaker 4: was one of the most hated in the world of
Speaker 4: corporate America. But pharma delivers life saving treatments. You know,
Speaker 4: they invent these cures, gene therapies, medicines people rely on.
Speaker 4: I think what's happening here is the real disconnect where
Speaker 4: people don't see the value brought by health insurers who
Speaker 4: often play these middleman and have sharp elbows and negotiations
Speaker 4: that often can deny care.
Speaker 2: And United Healthcare is denial of coverage. Group pushback before
Speaker 2: its chief executive was killed.
Speaker 4: United health in the past year has faced a great
Speaker 4: amount of scrutiny, the.
Speaker 3: FDC suing three prominent drug benefit managers alleging a scheme
Speaker 3: that elevated insulin prices.
Speaker 4: So it's a longstanding issue. It's at times easy to
Speaker 4: say a uniquely American issue. Our health insurance system looks
Speaker 4: a lot different from those in other countries, particularly those
Speaker 4: were public healthcare.
Speaker 2: Is broad I'd love to get a sense from you
Speaker 2: of the place this company, United Healthcare occupies in that
Speaker 2: industry broadly, in health insurance more narrowly. How big a
Speaker 2: company is this?
Speaker 4: United health is undoubtedly the large just player in healthcare
Speaker 4: by market cap. This is a more than five hundred
Speaker 4: billion dollar company. I don't know that many recognize how
Speaker 4: big it is in corporate America. I mean, this isn't
Speaker 4: even just about healthcare. It's one of the biggest companies
Speaker 4: in the world.
Speaker 2: Coming up after the break, the latest reporting on what
Speaker 2: happened before and after Brian Thompson was killed and how
Speaker 2: United Healthcare has responded to both the shooting and its aftermath.
Speaker 2: Since Brian Thompson was killed in New York, Bloomberg's Riley
Speaker 2: Griffin and her colleagues have spent a lot of time
Speaker 2: figuring out what happened.
Speaker 4: On that December morning, Thompson was headed to United Health
Speaker 4: Groups Investor Day. These are annual events that companies have
Speaker 4: to communicate to investors in analysts about the current state
Speaker 4: of their business. He was en route to his hair
Speaker 4: and makeup appointment for this investor Day, but he never
Speaker 4: arrived to that appointment, and so as other senior executives
Speaker 4: were headed up into the building, they noticed several cop
Speaker 4: cars on fifty fourth Street. They were redirected to other entrances,
Speaker 4: and yet they thought to themselves, really, this is another
Speaker 4: day in New York, which is relatable if you've ever
Speaker 4: spent time in Midtown Manhattan. The sirens are blaring, there's
Speaker 4: a always commotion, and they started to notice his absence.
Speaker 4: It wasn't typical for Thompson, a two decade plus veteran
Speaker 4: of the company, to show up late to a moment
Speaker 4: like this. They speculated perhaps he had overslept or was sick.
Speaker 4: They discussed sending someone to go check on him. They
Speaker 4: came up with a plan to cover his part of
Speaker 4: the presentation, and so Investor Days started and just as
Speaker 4: it was starting, and CEO Andrew Whittiy of The Broader
Speaker 4: Company was going on to speak on stage. As he
Speaker 4: delivered some of the earliest remarks, a couple of executives
Speaker 4: got a call to come down that there had been
Speaker 4: a security emergency.
Speaker 2: That's when they learned Riley says their colleague had been killed.
Speaker 4: Andrew Whitdy, the CEO, was pulled out of the room.
Speaker 4: Who is distraught, A pretty traumatic moment. And shortly thereafter
Speaker 4: there were guests in the room as investors in analysts
Speaker 4: received notification on their phone news of the executives passing,
Speaker 4: and so right thereafter he cut the investor day short
Speaker 4: and from there it was about getting the executives out
Speaker 4: of the room.
Speaker 2: What have you learned since this attack about how companies,
Speaker 2: including United Healthcare approach safety and how they've changed their protocols.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so certainly we've heard from the New York Police
Speaker 4: Department that right now they're identifying a heightened risk in
Speaker 4: part because of the rhetoric online. January is worthcoming. The
Speaker 4: JP Morgan Healthcare Conference is a time where all the
Speaker 4: executives of major healthcare companies, you know, convene. We're trying
Speaker 4: to better understand the security environment here. We still have
Speaker 4: lingering questions as to why Brian Thompson had arrived without security,
Speaker 4: whether that was typical, but the company is shoring up
Speaker 4: security at its offices currently. We've seen memos that suggest
Speaker 4: that is underway. External visitors aren't allowed into some of
Speaker 4: these offices at.
Speaker 2: This time, and Riley says United Healthcare is taking down
Speaker 2: information about executives that had been available online as.
Speaker 4: The company was grappling with how to ensure the safety
Speaker 4: of its other senior executives and even board members. The
Speaker 4: company took down both of those bio pages, the pictures
Speaker 4: and the bios that were associated with them, so and
Speaker 4: obscuring of information around who else you know exists in
Speaker 4: the C suite. It'll be interesting to see if other
Speaker 4: companies do the same, But that was another measure the
Speaker 4: company took that day to bolster security.
Speaker 2: And as Riley says, the healthcare industry has had to
Speaker 2: respond to the attack, but also to the vitriol we've
Speaker 2: seen since. Do you have much insight into if there
Speaker 2: will be a more concerted effort by this company or
Speaker 2: the industry more broadly to respond to what we've seen
Speaker 2: percolating on social media.
Speaker 4: It is our burning question at this moment. We have
Speaker 4: not heard of plans to come out on the offensive
Speaker 4: and take a more active approach to engaging the public
Speaker 4: and their discontents. You know, something I in my colleagues
Speaker 4: have heard from current employees is that's a great frustration.
Speaker 4: They feel that this is the time to engage. You know,
Speaker 4: some have suggested perhaps an editorial in the New York Times.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's all these different ideas about ways to
Speaker 4: directly respond, but we haven't seen that beyond statements here
Speaker 4: and there. We do know a crisis communications firm has
Speaker 4: been hired. We also know in the wake of these events,
Speaker 4: meetings have been canceled, presentations have been canceled. Engagement not
Speaker 4: with the public, but with other businesses has been put
Speaker 4: on pause.
Speaker 2: You've written that the shooting and its aftermath have been
Speaker 2: a wake up call for health insurance companies. Is this
Speaker 2: likely to change anything about the way that they do business?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So, I just want to take you through one
Speaker 4: example that might be a quick tell, but Elevance another
Speaker 4: company scrapped this plan that really drew a lot of
Speaker 4: controversy as it was made public amid this moment following
Speaker 4: the shooting, the plan was to enact time limits on
Speaker 4: anesthesia coverage for certain surgeries, and there was just this
Speaker 4: public outcry and opposition from physician groups. It's hard to
Speaker 4: say direct causation or correlation, but this policy change had
Speaker 4: been destined to go into effect in February for members
Speaker 4: of Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield in New York, Connecticut,
Speaker 4: and Missouri, And even though this had been announced last month,
Speaker 4: the criticism bubbled up in the wake of the shooting,
Speaker 4: and ultimately they walked back that policy. They said that
Speaker 4: part of this was due to misinformation, and because of
Speaker 4: the misinformation, they decided not to proceed with this policy change.
Speaker 4: But it is a good window into a company that
Speaker 4: had to take action in the wake of a public outcry.
Speaker 4: And so I have no crystal ball, David. It's hard
Speaker 4: to read the future right now, but there are signs
Speaker 4: that companies are having to listen to the public and
Speaker 4: public sentiment in this moment. So what else could that
Speaker 4: judge up and what else could that change about how
Speaker 4: they cover Americans health care?
Speaker 2: Riley, thank you very much. This is the big take
Speaker 2: from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gera. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by Julia Press. It was edited by Tim Annett and
Speaker 2: Naomi Shaven, who's our senior producer. It was fact checked
Speaker 2: by Adriana Tapia and mixed and sound designed by Alex Sagura.
Speaker 2: Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is
Speaker 2: Nicole beemster Boor. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
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