Luigi Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania and found with a firearm suppressor, a ghost gun and multiple fraudulent IDs.
Luigi Mangione Arrested
The Wall Street Journal reports Person of Interest in Killing of UnitedHealth Executive Arrested.
A McDonald’s employee in Altoona, Pa., about 85 miles east of Pittsburgh, saw Luigi Mangione, 26, eating and called police Monday morning, the New York City Police Department said at a news briefing Monday afternoon. The man was arrested on firearms charges. Authorities called him a “strong person of interest” in the killing of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson.
Police believe Mangione traveled from New York after fatally shooting Thompson early Wednesday outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel before an investor meeting. The suspect wrote the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” on bullets that are believed to have come from his gun, a law-enforcement official said. Those words are commonly associated with tactics insurers use to avoid paying claims.
The man also had a handwritten three-page document that showed ill-will toward corporate America, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
Widespread Anger Over “Delay,” “Deny” and “Depose”
Also consider Clues Left by a Killer Echo Widespread Anger at Health Insurers
The words “deny,” “defend” and “depose”—etched in Sharpie on bullet casings recovered outside the Midtown Hilton after Wednesday’s deadly shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson—have focused attention on threats faced by professionals in all levels of the health-insurance industry, from call centers to c-suites, as companies review their security measures and plan to step them up.
The words are familiar to anyone on the front lines of the emotional battles between insurance companies and their customers over coverage issues. Patient support groups commonly use the refrain “deny, delay and defend,” which is meant to summarize cost-driven insurance-company tactics that some customers see as harsh.
“It’s a common saying,” said Paul Napoli, a plaintiffs’ lawyer who has filed numerous lawsuits against insurers, including UnitedHealthcare. “It’s their modus operandi to figure out the methods and means to deny coverage.”
Some Americans displayed shockingly little sympathy online for Thompson, citing their own experiences struggling to get coverage and describing health insurers as greedy.
“No sympathy for a man that made his living and massive amounts of money on the backs of people that needed healthcare. He made the policies that caused innocent people and kids to die because they denied” coverage, said one poster on TikTok.
Another TikTok poster sarcastically offered condolences: “My deepest thoughts and deductibles to the family. Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network and it isn’t deemed medically necessary.”
In addition, a new memecoin launched on Wednesday night after the shooting with the name DDD for “Deny Defend Depose,” according to Dexscreener, a crypto trading website. The coin traded on Raydium, a decentralized crypto exchange, and its market capitalization was recently about $2 million, the website showed.
At the root of much anger with health insurers are long-running industry practices that the companies have used to keep a lid on costs. Among them is prior authorization, which requires patients and doctors to get permission from an insurer before a medical procedure.
Nearly a quarter of doctors said prior authorization had led to a serious adverse event for a patient, while 78% said the process sometimes led to treatment abandonment and 94% said it had delayed necessary care, according to a survey of 1,000 practicing physicians last year by the American Medical Association.
The practice is widespread—nearly all of insurers’ Medicare customers are required to get authorization for at least some services, according to an analysis by healthcare research nonprofit KFF. About 10% of the 46 million requests were denied, according to 2022 data.
Rejection rates varied from 4% to 13% among insurers, and UnitedHealthcare’s, at 8.7%, wasn’t the highest.
Healthcare and social-assistance workers have faced the highest levels of workplace violence among any sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There are about 14 cases for every 10,000 full-time healthcare and social-assistance workers, compared with the annual rate of 2.9 cases for employees generally.
Centene, another health insurer, said Thursday that it wouldn’t hold its planned in-person investor event scheduled for next week in New York, instead offering the program virtually.
On the YouTube channel of AskTheLawyers, a five-year-old video titled “Delay, Deny, Defend: How Insurance Companies Sabotage Your Claim” was getting fresh viewers on Thursday. “UNH CEO brought me here…,” wrote one commenter.
Luigi Mangione was so sloppy, carrying a firearm suppressor, a ghost gun, and hand written documents that one has to wonder if he just got tired of running and was ready to be captured.
Regardless, he is now in custody.