After health insurance CEO Brian Thompson was killed in New York City, the Media Research Center started out being overly concerned that people were a little too happy to see a health insurance executive dead, given how many people aren’t terribly happy about how insurers treat them. Nicholas Fondacaro raged at a familiar target in a Dec. 5 post:
With morbid and grotesque glee, former Washington Post journalist and leftist extremist Taylor Lorenz cheered the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a Bluesky post on Wednesday. A post that was followed up with a stream of posts both from her and others justifying the cold-blooded murder and a thinly veiled suggested that the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield Association should be targeted for death too.
Lorenz’s comments about killing healthcare industry CEOs started with a quoted post from the left-wing More Perfect Union reporting that “Blue Cross Blue Shield in Connecticut, New York and Missouri has declared it will no longer pay for anesthesia for the full length of some surgeries.”
To that report, Lorenz darkly commented: “And people wonder why we want these executives dead.”
Jorge Bonilla followed the next day:
Without evidence of any kind, NBC Nightly News anchor recklessly linked Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s reversal of a coverage decision to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Such a move does not render a public service, but instead further inflames the public discourse.
[…]To tie the Anthem decision to the Thompson shooting does nothing but validate Lorenz’s insanity and encourage others to engage in, for lack of a better term, stochastic terrorism against health care executives.
Reasonable individuals can disagree on healthcare policy without calling for murder, or inferring that corporate policy decisions are the result of murder. To do so in the case of Anthem, as did Lester Holt, is absolutely reckless and dangerous.
Comedy cop Alex Christy grumbled:
While some journalists call for the October Revolution after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng quipped on Comedy Central on Thursday that just about everyone is a suspect because everyone in America hates their healthcare plan and has a gun.
Chieng recalled how the suspect engraved certain words into the bullets used to kill Thompson, “And now they’re trying to interpret what ‘Deny, defend, and depose’ means. And it looks like it’s either a criticism of the health insurance industry, or this guy was just trying to solve the Wordle on his bullets. Honestly, I think all bullets should say stuff on them. I mean, how else are we going to get Americans to read again, right? You should load up a machine gun with A Tale of Two Cities written in it. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’”
“Deny, defend, and depose” is almost certainly a play on a 2010 anti-insurance industry book by Jay Feinman entitled Delay, Deny, Defend that claims insurance companies “have an incentive to chisel their customers in order to increase profits.”
As for who the suspect might be, Chieng declared, “Now the cops just need to narrow down their list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their healthcare plan and has access to guns. Should be solved in no time.”
Christy then tried to defend the honor or health insurers (and seemed to suggest that government employees are more deserving of being killed instead):
A 2023 survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 81 percent of Americans rate their insurance rating as either “good” or “excellent,” including 80 percent of those who get their insurance through their employer. A 2024 study from the Pacific Research Institute found 91 percent of Americans are satisfied with their plan.
Americans simply aren’t eager to do away with private health insurance. Meanwhile, government-run health care agencies deny healthcare coverage too. In America, we have Medicare, but internationally the Canadian system has a doctor shortage while the Brits ration care all the time in the name of saving money.
Christy then served up another defense of health insurers (and attack on public insurance):
If a group of conservatives took to social media to dance on the grave of someone who was recently murdered, CNN Newsroom host Jim Acosta would fiercely and unequivocally condemn them, and rightfully so. He certainly would not hype how “an entire discussion” had been raised in the aftermath of their murder, but that is exactly what he did on Friday after United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s recent murder.
After a montage of social media clips of such grave dancing, Acosta welcomed correspondent Clare Duffy by claiming, “Those posts are part of a growing online trend of Americans expressing their personal struggles with UnitedHealthcare insurance following the CEO’s death.”
Thompson didn’t just die; he was murdered. As it was, Acosta wondered, “Clare, a lot of outrage over denied insurance claims, and it’s just sparked an entire discussion on social media. How big of a problem is this?”
Duffy began, “Yes. Jim, look, I mean, obviously there is never a justification for this kind of violence. But I think what we’re seeing in the social media reaction is this pent-up frustration and anger and distrust that so many Americans feel over the health insurance industry.”
A proper pair of journalists would look at these people and first ask if they have no shame and second ask if they are aware that government-run “universal” healthcare systems deny treatment all the time.
A proper “media researcher” would look into why people are unhappy with health insurance instead of playing whataboutism.
Curtis Houck served up his own fit of rage, complete with sniping at Lorenz as “dangerously unstable”:
With the heavy and repeated use of the word “but,” Friday’s CBS Mornings and CBS Mornings Plus sought to emphasize with, normalize, and explain away the disgusting and widespread celebrations of the far-left on social media celebrating the murder of the UnitedHealthCare’s CEO and wondered if this assassination would lead to “something good” like socialized medicine.
CBS also never attached a party label to those scoffing at the need to feel sympathy for Brian Thompson’s children, wife, and loved ones as far-left, progressive, or even liberal.
In addition to not even calling this behavior extreme, CBS didn’t cite the role the dangerously unstable and former guest Taylor Lorenz has played in fomenting these claims. Even NBC’s Ken Dilanian called her out.
CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King teased a segment on “why so many people online are saying they hate their insurance company” after implicitly connecting the murder with a reversal by Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield about anesthesia coverage.
King later seemed shock as she began the segment, claiming “some of us have been really surprised by the action — the reaction, rather, online,” describing said reactions as voicing “very deep frustration with the health insurance industry.”
Like Christy, Houck doesn’t seem interested in why that is — it’s almost as if he’s being paid not to talk about that.
NIcholas Fondacaro worked this into his daily hate-watch or “The View”:
Since the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was one of the biggest news stories all week, it was only a matter of time before one of the cast members of ABC’s The View said something abhorrent. On Friday, despite claiming she was against the violence, co-host Sunny Hostin highlighted some of the ghoulish social media comments mocking the murder and stoked fear of how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could damage healthcare in America.
Meanwhile, co-host Ana Navarro pointed to how at least one positive change had occurred since the targeted killing.
Near the top of the segment, Hostin wanted to draw attention to some of the heinous comments made on social media, without condemning them:
[…]Later in the segment, Navarro remarked that the assassination “has definitely shined light on our health crisis” and seemed to tout how Blue Cross Blue Shield had reneged on an unpopular new policy shortly after the assassination of Thompson:
[…]Of course, Behar wanted to try to smear Republicans with the shooting. She warned: “They have no interest at all in [fixing healthcare].” Farah Griffin actually stood up to her and pointed out that, “we complain about our healthcare right now, we’re living under Obamacare. Obamacare ain’t perfect either. It actually created monopolies in the healthcare system.”
“But we have nothing better!” Behar desperately tried to counter.
Fondacaro offered nothing in response.
Christy returned to complain that a former law enforcement official “raise[d] the possibility that United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson ‘orchestrated’ his own assassination.” Given that virtually nothing was known at the time about the crime, it was not entirely unreasonable to discuss all possibilities.