What the murder of a CEO tells us about healthcare in the United States

UnitedHealthcare's chief executive Brian Thompson was gunned down in New York last week

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Luigi Mangione is taken into court in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Photograph: Benjamin B Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP
Luigi Mangione is taken into court in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Photograph: Benjamin B Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP

On Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson (50), the UnitedHealthcare chief executive was murdered in cold blood outside a hotel in Manhattan.

The manhunt to find his killer ended on Monday when the chief suspect, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, was arrested as he sat in a McDonald’s, a railroad town in Pennsylvania. He has been charged with murder.

From the moment the CCTV of the shooting went viral, the police investigation began but so too did an onslaught of social media commentary: from amateur sleuths joining the manhunt; from infatuated posters who had become Mangione fans; and a deluge of online comments and memes either sarcastically or explicitly calling out the greed of private healthcare companies.

Now that a suspect has been caught says Irish Times Washington correspondent Keith Duggan, the intense fascination has shifted from “who?” to “why?”.

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Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.

Bernice Harrison

Bernice Harrison

Bernice Harrison is an Irish Times journalist and cohost of In the News podcast