Updated December 22, 2024 at 10:40 a.m.*
-Analysis-
MADRID — Politically and culturally, the United States may be more divided than ever, but there are still issues that unite the vast majority of the population across the right-left, male-female, urban-rural divides: a love for basketball, a taste for pizza, and … hatred for health insurance companies.
The public fascination with the broad daylight murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, gunned down in New York City earlier this month, ultimately has little to do with good looks of the alleged killer — 26-year-old Luigi Mangione — or with the fact that he managed to evade the notoriously corrupt and incompetent New York police by escaping on a bicycle.
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No, the attention surrounding the episode points to something much more fundamental: the killer’s motive. Anyone who has dealt with one of the country’s private insurance companies has cursed their exorbitant premiums and their devious tactics, clearly designed to avoid fulfilling their obligation: forcing citizens to cover the astronomical costs of medical services in the world’s wealthiest nation.
Despite the reform pushed by Barack Obama, there are still about 26 million people without health insurance in the United States, a problem that is estimated to lead to 45,000 deaths annually.
Among those who are insured, more than half face issues, given how frequently insurance companies refuse to cover incurred expenses, increasingly relying on algorithms to do so. The country’s collective medical debt amounts to $220 billion and leads to 650,000 bankruptcies each year.
Since Mangione’s arrest on December 9, American media have been striving to explain an apparent enigma: what could have driven the scion of a wealthy and influential family, and graduate of the prestigious University of Pennsylvania — and a promising future, to adopt the modus operandi of a 19th-century anarchist?
But, why?
Speculation has been abundant. It seems that, despite his young age, Mangione had numerous interactions with the medical system due to his many physical problems, including a spinal deformity that caused him unbearable pain. At the same time, his extensive and varied readings — which he discussed online and with friends — point to a spiritual malaise that may have been equally painful.
He was restless, searching for something.
Mangione was restless, searching for something: he read the writings of Ted Kaczynski, better known as the “Unabomber,” with a certain admiration; he surfed in Hawaii; studied fitness; traveled to Japan to write and meditate in the mountains; and criticized the alienation of technology-driven life and the power of large corporations.
Curiously, the same media outlets that have devoted dozens of articles to profiling Mangione have refused to share the brief handwritten text he was carrying when he was arrested, a text that, initially, only journalist Ken Klippenstein dared to publish in full on his Substack.
Mangione’s note
The text, concise and coherent, is addressed to the FBI and intended to make their job easier. Mangione begins by telling the agents not to waste time looking for accomplices because he planned the attack alone, using his expertise as a computer engineer (he even built his own gun with a 3D printer).
Someone had to do it.
He also explains his motive, emphasizing that “someone had to do it.” In this regard, he provides two key points. First, “the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy.”
Second, UnitedHealthcare, the country’s largest insurance company, enjoys “immense profits” generated at the expense of the “the American public.”
Although many have shed light on the corruption and greed that fuel the system — “I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument,” he admits — the conclusion is clear: “The problems simply remain.”
Symbolism
The obvious counterargument is that Brian Thompson and the company he led are merely symptoms of a much more systemic problem: the absence of a public healthcare system for the large part of the population that cannot rely on Medicaid (which covers the poorest) or Medicare (which covers retirees).
If most healthcare is in private hands and managed for profit, it’s because Congress has allowed it. The vacancy left by Thompson will be filled by someone just like him.
Nevertheless, Mangione’s action, if his authorship is confirmed, has had an unmatched symbolic power, and not only because the young man dared to turn into reality a fantasy of revenge that others have entertained at some point in moments of extreme frustration.
Supporters of the alleged killer showed up outside his court appearance Thursday in New York, holding signs criticizing the U.S. healthcare system and insurance companies and their lobbyists.
Divided, together
What’s striking about the case is that it resists any reductive explanation. If the alleged killer had not been a well-educated Italian-American young man but, for example, a Muslim, an African American man, or a Latino immigrant the murder would have been explained by resorting to the usual prejudices and the well-known demonization of the group in question.
Mangione became, overnight, a folk hero.
Similarly, if Mangione had had a clear political affiliation — instead of rejecting, as he seems to have done, both right-wing and left-wing positions in favor of widespread discontent and a focus on self-help — it would also have been easier to neutralize the symbolic potential of the murder.
The curious thing, however, is that the specific circumstances in which Thompson’s murder occurred make it almost a bipartisan action that has managed to transcend the deep divides that separate this country. The very fact that this act, clearly wrong, absurd and illegal, has seemed understandable to many — and that Mangione became, overnight, a folk hero — reveals the profound lack of logic in an incomprehensible, cruel, and inhuman healthcare system.
*Originally published Dec. 16, 2024, this article was updated December 22 with new information about protesters supporting Mangione, as well as new enriched media.
