Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said on Sunday that he’s “not surprised” by the flood of online vitriol following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in what police describe as an apparent premeditated attack.
“Well, first of all, let me just say, it was horrific. I mean, this is a father we’re talking about of two children, and my sympathies to the entire family. There is no justification for violence,” Khanna said in an interview on ABC News’s “This Week” with Martha Raddatz, when asked whether he was surprised by the vitriol.
“But the outpouring afterward has not surprised me,” Khanna added.
Thompson’s death has spurred an outpouring of public testimony describing negative experiences with health insurance companies and getting claims denied. In the comments section of some news reports, some people have even gloated about his death.
Authorities have yet to determine a motive in the executive’s murder, and the manhunt is still underway to find the suspect. But police recovered from the scene three discharged shell casings with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them.
According to the New York Post, those three words are similar to the title of a 2010 book, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”
In the interview, Khanna described his own negative experience with the company.
“Look, I, as a congressperson, had UnitedHealthcare deny a prescription for a nasal $100 pump spray, and I couldn’t get them to reverse this, so imagine what ordinary people are dealing with,” Khanna said. “The biggest denial comes when it’s cancer treatment. I mean, people are getting denied on cancer treatment.”