‘My Empathy Is Out of Network’

When the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was killed in a targeted shooting Wednesday morning in New York, politicians from his home state of Minnesota posted sympathetic messages on social media. But those responses of support were soon drowned out by a very different tone, as people shared horror stories of being denied covered by the health insurance company and made morbid jokes comparing the CEO’s death to the ways they’ve been mistreated by the U.S. health care system.

A Facebook post by UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, said it was “deeply saddened and shocked at the passing of our dear friend and colleague Brian Thompson.” But that post has garnered over 11,000 laughing emojis as of the time of this writing, far outweighing the more somber emojis used to express condolences. Comments have been turned off for that post, but shares included comments like “I would offer thoughts and prayers but they are not covered as they are out of network.”

An Instagram post from the company was similarly locked down, stopping average users from commenting directly, but other posts on the platform also had scathing comments. On a post from last week, which discussed ways to manage holiday stress, commenters didn’t hold back: “My empathy is out of network for this one.”

“Sorry. But my insurance and Medicaid don’t cover Thoughts and Prayers,” read one comment with hundreds of likes, echoing the sentiment that had turned into a meme.

“Judging by the public reaction I think the bigger story should be why this doesn’t happen more often,” read another comment.

Other comments got more personal, with people sharing their stories of being denied coverage by UnitedHealthcare and having to pay large sums of money to survive: “My uncle paid you guys for 22 years without missing a single payment and then when he died you denied his life insurance claim. You even had the nerve to cash a check from him the week he died. Scum bags. Sometimes you get what you deserve. I hope all of you suffer the way my mom has for the past year she has had to endure the nightmare of losing her brother and then almost filing for bankruptcy due to your denial of a life insurance claim paid punctually and faithfully for 22 years. Then you turn around and spit on his corpse. Your empathy claim has been denied. I hope you all get what’s coming.”

Others made dark jokes: “seems like that hole in his chest was a pre-existing condition. You gonna have to deny coverage.”

UnitedHealthcare insures over 49 million Americans, and the company generated $281 billion in revenue last year, according to the Associated Press. The insurance giant is notorious for denying coverage, deploying an artificial intelligence tool that has an error rate of roughly 90%, according to a lawsuit filed last year.

There were also videos on Instagram making note of the fact that the UnitedHealth conference in Manhattan started on time at 8:00 a.m. ET, despite Thompson being killed around 6:45 a.m. The conference was eventually stopped a little after 9:00 a.m. And some tweets on X outright celebrated the death of the CEO, with videos promoting the killer’s fashion choices and backpack.

But the reactions weren’t all gleeful. There were plenty of people who objected to celebrating a murder. Thompson reportedly had two children and a wife, who told NBC News that he had been getting death threats recently, possibly related to “a lack of coverage.”

“For those people who laughed at this post shame on you that family has lost a love one and yet you have to be a dick just remember karma is a bitch,” one comment on Facebook read.

The reactions feel like a significant shift in the tone of the country, however imperfect a barometer social media comments might be. Normally, trolling and sadistic glee over a person’s death are relegated to the margins on extremist sites like 4chan or X ever since Elon Musk purchased the platform. But Wednesday’s wave of anger and frustration at the health care system could be seen openly across the internet.

It makes sense that Americans might be more loose with their sense of decorum these days. The re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency signaled a kind of right-wing populist nihilism as the Republican leader embraced conspiracy theories, threatened to go after his political enemies, and demonized immigrants in wildly racist ways. The sometimes celebratory attitude of such a broad swath of Americans on Wednesday felt like an embrace of that same sort of nihilism.

The history of the U.S. is one of tremendous violence, but the past two decades have been relatively stable when it comes to blood being spilled domestically for political purposes. The U.S. was averaging about five bombings a day in the early 1970s, according to the FBI, a simple fact that isn’t often remembered here in the 21st century. And a century ago, it was completely normal for dozens of people to be killed at once during labor actions in the U.S., as workers and bosses fought for control. All of which is to say this is likely the beginning rather than the end of people embracing political violence, especially as Trump prepares to take power with promises of retribution. Peace and stability are not the norm.

The person who shot Brian Thompson is still at large, and the NYPD is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction. But even that news made for another opportunity for people on social media to point out how they’ve been harmed by UnitedHeath’s policies. As one user wrote on Bluesky, “The reward out for the person who shot United Healthcare’s CEO isn’t even enough to cover 1/9 of the bill we got for 28 days of radiation.”