UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting exposes America’s class divide

On Wednesday morning Brian Thompson, the 50-year old CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed by a masked assassin wielding a silenced handgun as he left his Manhattan hotel to attend the company’s annual shareholder conference. The bullet casings were later revealed to contain the words “delay”, “deny”, and “defend”, which also happened to form the title of a book exposing common malpractice within the insurance industry.

UnitedHealthcare is America’s largest insurer, raking in $372 billion in profits last year and holding 2,200 subsidiaries, through which an estimated 5% of US gross domestic product passes each day. Thompson personified the vast influence of this industry and the differing reactions to his death have laid bare the glaring asymmetries between the powerful and the powerless.