Health Insurers Rush to Protect Leaders as Expert Slams Reactions to CEO's Death: 'This Is Murder'

On December 4, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot outside the Hilton Midtown hotel in New York City in what police said was a deliberate, targeted killing. Shell casings found at the scene were engraved with the words “deny,” “defend” and “dismiss,” similar to the phrase — “delay, deny, defend” — used to describe the strategy of insurance companies that deny claims.

While a motive has not yet been determined, the killing has led healthcare companies to ramp up their security measures as experts tell PEOPLE about the public’s alarmed response.

After Thompson’s death, Matthew Dumpert, CEO of Kroll Enterprise Security Risk Management, said a number of CEOs and other executives reached out in the past two days to increase protection and personal security “around the clock.”

“The CEO is the face of the organization. A CEO is a lightning rod that attracts anger regardless of the product or services being sold,” he told CNBC.

UnitedHealthcare — the largest private health insurer in the US — removed photos of Thompson and other executives from its website shortly after his death; although the intention is unknown.

UnitedHealth Group; Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg/Getty

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The need for top-level and high-profile executives for security has increased in recent years, particularly as large corporations, such as those in healthcare, have come under fire.

However, Rob D’Amico — a retired FBI special agent and security expert — tells PEOPLE that security measures are often not a priority and are expensive for companies to maintain.

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“I think there are some issues and healthcare companies are going to have to take it seriously,” he says. “A lot of times companies don’t take security seriously. Security never brings income. Ever. It’s always one of the first things to get cut.”

D’Amico says that, unfortunately, he suspects that Thompson’s killing will lead to an increase in threats directed at high-ranking corporate officials.

“It’s going to wake up some health care companies because not everyone is saying it’s a terrible thing,” he explains, noting that there are probably “enough angry people who have lost people who have been denied coverage.”

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Despite the shocking shooting, many Americans expressed mixed feelings on social media about the act due to their personal feelings about the healthcare system as a whole. Leemore Dafny, a professor at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School, called the online reaction to Thompson’s death “appalling” while also acknowledging years of consumer frustration with US health care

“Some people have expressed that this is an unexpected consequence of a lot of revulsion and mistrust of the insurance industry,” she tells PEOPLE. “It speaks to the level of frustration and despair that Americans have with our incredibly expensive and yet inequitable health care system that seems to make arbitrary decisions about different treatments.”

However, she emphasizes: “This is murder. This is not an expression of dissatisfaction with the industry.”

Dafny notes that “the health insurance industry has had really terrible PR for a long time,” which is partly “its own fault.” But she also talks about being “horrified that anyone would celebrate murder.”

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“They are not saints … but they are hardly responsible for what we are experiencing in American health care,” she adds. “There’s plenty of blame to share.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education

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