The killing of a CEO
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On Tuesday, Luigi Mangione entered a courthouse in Pennsylvania. He was there for an extradition hearing. ...and is completely out of dust and has been shot. The intelligence of the American people...

The 26-year-old was taken out of a police SUV. He was handcuffed and struggling against several police officers. He shouted something about being completely out of touch, and you can hear him say something like, an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience. Then Mangione disappeared behind a door into the courthouse.

After a five-day manhunt, Mangione was arrested on Monday in connection with the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Mangione has been charged with murder, along with other counts. Authorities said they found him with what looked like a 3D-printed gun. And they say they have evidence that includes, quote, written admissions about the crime.

Thompson's killing was brutal. He was shot last Wednesday morning outside of a hotel in Manhattan. And as police searched for the gunman, I don't know about you, but I couldn't look away. Just the scope of this manhunt, each surveillance photo released of the suspect,

And then some of the details of this case, like how bullet casings were covered by the police had the words delay and deny written on them. Words that echo what health insurance companies say to avoid paying out insurance claims. It was just so scary and unsettling.

But then, what made it all even more shocking were the reactions that started pouring in on social media. Martin, I saw a lot of people who were celebrating this killing. Dan Diamond reports on healthcare policy for The Post. I wasn't surprised that people were mad when I first heard the report that the UnitedHealthcare CEO had been shot and killed in public.

This was where my mind went, that there are a lot of people who hate this company, who feel that the company has wronged them, or the broader insurance industry has harmed them or their families. They saw it as a message to an industry that is much despised, and that even though a man's life was lost, they said that he was a symbol for what was going wrong in American healthcare. From the newsroom of The Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Martine Powers. It's Tuesday, December 10th.

Today, we hear the latest updates from Dan about the suspected shooter in police custody. But we'll also hear about the reactions to this horrific shooting, the disturbing celebrations of Thompson's death, and this level of rage that people feel at the health insurance industry. So we'll talk with Dan about why this is happening and what this case means going forward. ♪

So, Dan, we're talking early Tuesday morning. As of now, what do we know about the man that police have arrested?

His name is Luigi Mangione. He's originally from Maryland, went to high school in Baltimore, then went to college at the University of Pennsylvania, and then moved to Hawaii, where he proceeded to drop out of contact with some of his friends and family. He was an achiever, someone that his teachers told me was inspirational, charismatic, just a leader of other students. He was valedictorian of his high school class. He was an engineer who

worked on a number of different projects ranging from robotics to coding. Someone who clearly had a lot of intellectual interests. And Martina, I have to be honest, I was rattled when I learned Mangione's identity because this is a guy who took a path that is very familiar to me. He went to my small high school in Baltimore. He went to the same college I did. He even did a summer program at the same university, Stanford, before his senior year of college like I did. I

walked in the same paths that he did across these college campuses and high school campuses. I know teachers who taught him. We did not overlap. I didn't know him personally, but his family is pretty well known where I'm from. Like I recognized the name as soon as my brother of all people told me.

So, you know, this past week I've been reporting on the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing. And I already felt somewhat personally connected to that because before becoming a reporter, I worked for a company that was a healthcare research consulting firm acquired by UnitedHealth Group after I left. So people that I worked with knew and loved Brian Thompson. I could never have imagined that the potential killer of Brian Thompson is someone who is even closer to the world that I know.

All right. So as you said, Mangione kind of dropped out of contact with his friends and family some time ago. But then police believe that he resurfaced in New York with the shooting. And what police say happened here is that the suspect was waiting outside of a hotel that was hosting United Health Group's annual investor conference. And

And when Thompson got there, he was entering the hotel. The suspect shot him at point-blank range, then fled the scene on foot and then on bike and was able to make his way out of the state. Dan, is there any sense yet of what motivated Mangione to allegedly carry out the shooting? It's all still speculative. But if you look at the trail Luigi Mangione left behind online, you can see potential clues.

His friends and family have said he suffered from back problems and had a back surgery. He posted a photo of what appears to be pretty gruesome back surgery with screws in his back. A relatively young guy having a major surgery like that can be very complicated. He read books, apparently, that had to do with back injuries and recovering from them. And he's written a lot on social media about his anger toward...

the way that the world has evolved, his feeling that there are things wrong in our society and wanting to address that. He's not alone in thinking that our society has problems, but as alleged by police, he is the shooter here. Turning to violence is obviously shocking and horrifying as an outcome. And it seems like one of the questions people are asking right now in terms of this back surgery is, like, did he have some interaction with...

An insurance company with UnitedHealthcare that's like set him down this path. And I'm sure that's something that investigators are going to be looking at. Something that we're looking at too. I mean, as we're speaking, that is an active line of inquiry for our reporters. Dan, tell me more about how police were actually able to find Mangione. There was not a lot of

detail of who the shooter was for several days. He took steps to make sure that he wasn't recognized. He wore a mask pretty consistently around New York City. It appears that maybe he took it off once when talking to someone at the hostel he was staying at. He had taken other precautions to try and avoid where cameras would be, went through Central Park, the major park in the middle of New York City, where there are lots of ins and outs, took a bus and

rather than, say, a train where you might have to have your identification or at least your ticket checked. He was clearly taking pains to stay below the radar. But still, he had this very distinctive set of eyebrows. He was wearing a mask. And it appears that someone at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, saw a man who fit that description.

Wow. I mean, it's a remarkable scene to imagine someone at a McDonald's just recognizing this guy. What do we know about what happened then? Like, police were contacted? And what happened from there? My understanding from court documents is that police were dispatched, approached. A relatively new police officer was among the pair. And they approached this man sitting in the McDonald's wearing a mask, working on a computer, saying,

And the police officers asked him to remove the mask. They recognized him as a potential suspect. An officer asked if Mangione had been in New York. According to the court documents, he became quiet. He started to shake. He had provided the officers with a fake ID, apparently the New Jersey driver's license that was linked to the stay in New York. The police said, be straight with us, essentially, or you'll be in bigger trouble. And apparently in his backpack were covered images

And can we talk a little bit about the evidence that was found on him? I mean, there's this three-page handwritten document that police were able to get a hold of. Like, what else was discovered as part of this arrest?

The document, this alleged manifesto, I haven't seen it. I don't believe that's in the court documents. But there have been media reports that there was essentially an admission that Mangione or whoever wrote the manifesto was responsible for the shooting of the executive and said something to the effect of these parasites simply had it coming. So anger against Mangione.

the insurance industry. The other materials found with Mangione included foreign currency, which he said he wasn't sure how he got that, a gun that appears to be the one linked to the shooting in New York, an alleged 3D printed pistol to be specific with a silencer. This would be a gun that someone could create themselves. And again, Mangione as an engineer who had built things over the course of his young life,

Certainly someone who has some technical proficiency. I also want to talk about another piece of evidence that I think has gotten a lot of attention, which were these bullet casings that were left on the sidewalk where Thompson was shot. As we said before, it's been reported that the casing had words on them, delay, deny, depose. Can you talk about what these words mean and how they might give us more information about a possible motive? Sure.

Martine, I have to be honest. When I first heard those reports, I thought it was like two on the nose. I thought, man, this might even be like a false flag. Someone wanted to kill Brian Thompson, this insurance industry executive, and almost make it so obvious to lead the trail away. I mean, those are terms that have been popularized in the insurance industry and specifically by people watchdogging the industry, saying that the insurance industry does too much to delay paying out claims.

and maybe letting people get, in the case of healthcare, the procedures that they think they should or that their doctors think they should. Denying claims as well, not paying them out. Opposing, these are terms that get into the legal battles involved with the insurance industry and sometimes the fight that it takes to get claims

Wow.

So what happens next for Mangione and for this investigation? Mangione is facing a number of charges. In Manhattan, prosecutors filed murder, other charges against him. He is currently, as we're recording this, Martine, still in Pennsylvania, where he's been charged with five counts, including possessing an instrument of a crime, providing false identification to law enforcement, and carrying a firearm without a license. It may be some time before he's extradited back to New York City.

After the break, we talk about the target of the shooting, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, and the controversies around the industry that he represented. We'll be right back. This episode is supported by Rocket Money. Can you name every single subscription you have? I know I can't name all of mine, and I'm not alone.

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saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash reports. That's rocketmoney.com slash reports. rocketmoney.com slash reports. So Dan,

There was, of course, this very high-profile public search for the gunman. People were glued to their TVs, you know, when these photos came out of who this guy was and everyone was looking for him. But as this has all unfolded over the last week...

I think what might have been lost in some of this is the person who was the victim here, the CEO of this major health insurance company. Dan, can you give us a rundown here of who Brian Thompson was?

Brian Thompson, or BT to his friends and colleagues, was a longtime executive at UnitedHealthcare. He had risen to be CEO of this massive company, which is responsible for providing health coverage to about 50 million Americans. It's also part of this larger corporate giant, UnitedHealth Group, which employs a number of doctors, which owns hospitals.

Health centers is involved in so many different parts of the health system. Truly the biggest player in American health care. Hi, I'm Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare. And welcome to the attendees of Reuters Total Health.

BT, his friends and colleagues have told me, was the kind of guy who could walk into a big meeting room and command respect, lead a large session with customers, with colleagues, speak to investors. Our mission and values are focused on helping people live healthier lives. But also was a personal, empathetic guy who, if he was running into colleagues in the hallway, could stop, remember details about hundreds of his staffers. He was very well-liked.

He was not known, though, by, I think, the broader population of America. This is not a guy who was going on TV, not someone whose voice would be immediately recognizable, unlike some other healthcare leaders and pundits. And I think, Martine, that's helped contribute to the reaction. He was an empty vessel, essentially. He became a very easy stand-in for people's frustrations with the industry.

Yeah, well, let's talk a little bit more about that. That, you know, at the same time, as you said, you have these friends and family and colleagues who are feeling profound grief over the loss of Brian Thompson, that you do have these people online who are seeing something symbolic in his death as some kind of reason to celebrate or some kind of win. Right.

Tell me more about, like, what's happening here. Why are we seeing this online? Martina runs the gamut. There are people who are outright mocking, celebrating, using insurance industry terminology like Brian Thompson, and I'm just paraphrasing here, but your request for care has been denied. There were celebrations when the

Reports came out that the shell casings were emblazoned with language around the insurance industry saying, in so many words, the insurance industry kind of had it coming. There have been other people who have been outright saying executives of these companies should be in peril, that their industry is evil and deserves some accountability. Even when there has been kind of a

And I saw Mark Cuban, the health care entrepreneur and investor, post something that all he said was horrific. And there were hundreds of responses to that saying, no, the horror is the industry. And Mark Cuban, you have this wrong. And why do you think this is happening? Like, what's the reason behind all of this anger?

I think we're seeing it for a couple reasons. First, people don't like the health insurance industry. Sort of as a big construct, there's polling that suggests many Americans actually do like their own health plan. It's this phenomenon we see where people say, "I hate the US Congress, but I like my local representative." That said,

The experience that many Americans have had with their health insurance company has involved some frustration. There was polling that I cited in a story recently from KFF, the think tank, that about six in 10 Americans over the past 12 months of the poll had some frustration with their insurance company. They were denied care. They were hit with surprise bills. There was some paperwork glitch. There are all these problems that people have with health insurance. And one reason I think is that health insurance is

our most common interaction often with the health system and kind of the burdens of it. We're getting approved for care, we're getting billed for care.

Some of the actual interactions with physicians and hospitals, you're not being asked to pay on the way out the door. It's the insurance company that comes collecting. And I think that's where some of the frustration comes from. At the same time, UnitedHealthcare, as the biggest health insurer in America, touching the most lives, had the most of these frustrations compared to like any health insurance company, just because of the tonnage and also because of their individual practices. They've been called out by lawmakers, by watchdogs.

by media outlets. Stat News, great healthcare outlet, has done a number of stories on UnitedHealthcare and how they have denied claims at higher rates than other insurance companies and in ways that would suggest maybe they're seeking profits over putting patients first.

Some of the spotlight on UnitedHealthcare in recent months had been around their AI practices, that they were using algorithms to deny care very quickly. People who otherwise could have been getting care. This had been something I spoke with Senate offices about recently.

six weeks ago. A major report came out finding that UnitedHealthcare and some other insurers were denying care at very high rates, partly through the use of AI. So that had been on Watchdog's radar. The Department of Justice antitrust officials also have been probing UnitedHealth Group, this big company that controls so much of healthcare, saying that it has gotten too big in many cases. The

The focus on UnitedHealth Group and UnitedHealthcare has been there for a long time in the healthcare system. It has been fascinating, to choose one word, to see national attention start to catch up with this company is doing a lot of things that watchdogs really don't like.

Well, and I mean, at least for me, the reason why UnitedHealthcare immediately stuck out in my brain when I heard this news last week was because of what happened earlier this year, this healthcare hack that affected so many Americans and their ability to get their healthcare. Can you talk a little bit about that hack and

and how it started to air more of these frustrations with this company in general? Back in February, another subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group called Change Healthcare was hacked. Change Healthcare processed bills, processed claims, processed prescriptions for tens of millions of Americans across the country. Really about half of all the bills and claims were going through this one company. Once they got hacked and had to shut down, the U.S. health system collapsed.

essentially froze on payment. Doctors and hospitals weren't getting paid. There was a lot of pain in the healthcare community. There were doctors who were thinking that they might have to permanently close their doors.

Emergency funds were rushed to keep the providers open. Patients mostly didn't find out about this. It was like this big burbling thing under the surface martini that didn't break out into the public. But Congress got very concerned. They hauled UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witte, Brian Thompson's boss, into Congress and argued with him, yelled at him over what UnitedHealth Group had been doing, not just on protecting Americans' health information and protecting against hacks, but on protecting Americans' health information.

But whether UnitedHealth Group had gotten too big, whether the practices of UnitedHealthcare were too harmful. And so I think for us, we would have to ask, is the dominant role of United too dominant because it's into everything and messing up United messes up everybody?

Senator, thank you for the question. I think it's really important to be clear that the change footprint and activity was exactly the same on the day it was attacked from before it was acquired by UnitedHealth Group. It didn't change. And I was thinking about that last Wednesday morning when the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson happened. I remember the protesters showing up in Congress, yelling at Andrew Witte and complaining about the ways that people had been denied care. You can't hide!

There was a group of protesters who started chanting,

UnitedHealth, you can't hide. We can see your greedy side. And other UnitedHealth executives kind of blocked, physically blocked the protesters from getting to Andrew Witte. There were others who weren't yelling, but kind of came up and gave plaintive pleas about UnitedHealthcare's practice of denying care, of calling for what's known as prior authorization and saying that UnitedHealthcare was doing it too much, that it was harming patients.

So it was a real mix of both high-level anger and then these kind of softer pleas to Andrew Witte. And I have to be honest, Martine, I don't remember him really engaging with that, just kind of focused forward and moving through Congress. I stopped and talked to some of the protesters and heard their stories. And they're not dissimilar from stories that I've heard from patients all over America.

So then I guess that leads me to the question of what this moment means. Because I think, you know, I think or hope that most of us look at these, you know, social media posts of people celebrating something as horrific as a person getting shot on a street outside of a hotel and see that as horrific.

really, like, horrible side of human nature. And yet, to your point, you know, the frustrations with the healthcare industry in general and the way that people feel wronged by some of the insurance practices, you know, that those are valid. And so I guess, is this a moment of looking constructively at, like, what healthcare means to Americans and how maybe Americans

healthcare companies could or should be doing better? Or is that just like too far away from the vitriol of this moment? Martine, I think we have to keep writing about the problems in the healthcare industry. Lawmakers have to keep probing UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group. These are some of the biggest players in a broken system of delivering care. If we can't hold them accountable, then...

who's going to be the watchdog. At the same time, some of the reaction here, I think, is going to be counterproductive rather than healthcare leaders feeling like they can be more open, be more transparent, engage more with customers. There are a lot of people who are now terrified in the healthcare industry, people who have canceled public appearances, companies that are taking down photos of their leaders, making them even less easy to identify because they're worried about similar attacks.

I don't know if we're going to get to a place where there is some national conversation on this because so many people in healthcare are fearful and disgusted and alienated by the reaction they're seeing. I have covered enough

efforts in Washington where I know there can be a national event. There can be something that seems tragic and horrible, and it leads to organizing. The George Floyd protests of some years ago led to some action. There are smaller examples of people who mobilized around discrete health care problems and pushed for legislation. But we'll have to move beyond the celebration of

a UnitedHealthcare executive being killed, and it needs to become more about addressing systemic problems, not about potentially glorying in someone's death. Dan, thank you so much for explaining all of this. Martine, thanks for having me back on a very complicated issue. Dan Diamond is a health reporter for The Post. ♪

The Post is reporting on so many other stories today. So before we go, here are a couple more that we wanted to share with you. Israel has launched dozens of airstrikes across Syria. The strikes were reported Monday and Tuesday in northeast Syria and around the capital, Damascus. They targeted Syrian military installations, including multiple airports and a possible chemical weapons facility, according to officials who spoke to The Post.

The strikes happened as rebels took control of Damascus. President Bashar al-Assad has been pushed out and his authoritarian regime has collapsed. Israeli officials said the strikes were meant to better control Israel's border with Syria and, quote, The UN has condemned these attacks and they've called for a halt to the strikes.

Also, the renowned poet Nikki Giovanni died on Monday. She was 81 years old and the cause was cancer, according to a statement from her family. Across more than five decades and three dozen books, Giovanni's work touched so many people. Her words bridged the public and private spheres, celebrating Black identity, the realities of womanhood, politics and power struggles, the ordinary pleasures of daily life, and the

She became an elder stateswoman of the Black literary tradition. I first encountered Giovanni's poetry in high school, and I've been a devoted fan ever since. I thought it might be nice to share a recording of one of her poems here. I wrote a poem on growing old because I like growing old. I'm lucky that I like growing old because I'm going to grow old anyway. I'm

This is from an appearance she made at San Francisco State University in December of 1984, back when she was 41 years old. I wrote a poem on growing old because I think it's a nice thing to do. It's called The Life I Led. It's a persona poem.

I know my upper arms will grow flabby. It's true of all the women in my family. I know that the purple veins, like dead fish in the sand, will dot my legs one day. And my hands will wither while my hair turns grayish white. I know that. One day my teeth will move when my lips smile, and a flutter of hair will appear below my nose. I hope my skin doesn't change to those blotchy colors.

I want my minces to be undifficult. I'd very much prefer staying firm and slim, to grow old like a vintage wine, fermenting in old wooden vats with style. I'd like to be exquisite, I think.

I will look forward to grandchildren and my flowers, all my knickknacks in their places, and that quiet of the bombs not falling in Cambodia settling over my sagging breast. I hope my shoulder finds a head that needs nestling and my feet find a footstool after a good soaking with Epsom salts. I hope I die warmed by the life that I tried to live.

That recording was courtesy of the Poetry Center Digital Archive at San Francisco State University. That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. If you're looking for the latest updates on the big news of the day, check out our morning news briefing, The Seven. We bring you through the seven stories you need to know about every weekday morning by 7 a.m. You can listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts.

Today's show was produced by Rennie Svernovsky with help from Sabi Robinson and Ariel Plotnick. It was mixed by Justin Garish and edited by Rina Flores with help from Monica Campbell. Thanks also to Stephen Smith. I'm Martine Powers. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from The Washington Post.

Thanks for watching.

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