I don't celebrate the shooting of Brian Thompson - but health insurance companies must become more humane

6 December 2024, 17:35 | Updated: 7 December 2024, 16:53

One feature of health insurance in the United States is that access to health insurance may be affected by personal characteristics, such as employment status or marital status.

Patients may find themselves wading through a system of pre-authorizations, denials after a pre-authorization, and refusal to pay claims post-procedure.

The processes can be confusing and contradictory, leaving patients frustrated and without much-needed care.

It is against this cultural backdrop that many responded to the murder of the CEO of one of the major insurance companies in the US.

In some US social media spaces, many shared stories of pain regarding insurance delays or denials (some from the company in question, others not) that led to the deaths of loved ones or negative health outcomes for themselves or their loved ones.

I shared my own painful story of an insurance denial that happened approximately two days before a pre-authorized, scheduled surgery.

Meanwhile, there were others who felt that the telling and re-telling of these stories was disrespectful.

They felt that any remark that could be construed as critical of the recently departed was morally out of bounds, especially in the moments after the news broke of the killing.

As a professional bioethicist who shared her own personal story, I am interested in what these stories reveal about the state of US health care.

Before there was any information about the shooter, there was wide speculation that they must have been someone who (or whose loved one) was denied a claim.

While I do not think that this shooting is to be celebrated, I know that the practices of health insurance companies are a tremendous source of pain, grief, anger, and loss for millions of people in the US.

These companies have the power of life, death, and ill-health in their hands, and are, too often perceived as choosing the latter two.

That the story of a high-profile killing on a public street has been met with stories of grief, helplessness, and frustration is sad.

This does not have to be the state of affairs.

No one’s loved one can be brought back, but if there is a possibility for anything positive to come out of these events, then perhaps this is the moment that health insurance practices become more humane and less profit-driven.

Yolonda Wilson, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University in the United States. Her views are her own and do not reflect the opinion of Saint Louis University.

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