Filmmaker Michael Moore backed the anger toward insurance companies following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week.
“After the killing of the CEO of United HealthCare, the largest of these billion dollar insurance companies, there was an immediate OUTPOURING of anger toward the health insurance industry. Some people have stepped forward to condemn this anger,” Moore wrote in his Substack article published Friday. “I am not one of them.”
“The anger is 1000% justified. It is long overdue for the media to cover it. It is not new. It has been boiling. And I’m not going to tamp it down or ask people to shut up. I want to pour gasoline on that anger,” Moore continued.
Moore’s remarks come as the filmmaker is reportedly mentioned in suspect’s manifesto for calling out the “corruption and greed” within the healthcare industry, as highlighted by Newsweek.
Thompson was shot and killed last week outside a midtown Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealth Group was holding its annual investor conference.
Luigi Mangione, the man suspected of killing Thompson, faces five counts including murder in the second degree, according to an arrest warrant. He also faces two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree and criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree.
Police said a ghost gun, silencer and writings expressing “some ill will toward corporate America” were found on Mangione, which linked him to the crime. Mangione has claimed he acted alone.
Moore in his article explained that he does not see the anger as being related to the killing of Thompson.
“It is about the mass death and misery — the physical pain, the mental abuse, the medical debt, the bankruptcies in the face of denied claims and denied care and bottomless deductibles on top of ballooning premiums — that this “health care” industry has levied against the American people for decades,” Moore wrote.
He called for the complete reform of the health care system, suggesting the current one is thrown “in the trash.”
“The solution is simple. Throw this entire system in the trash, dismantle this immoral business that profits off the lives of human beings and monetizes our deaths, that murders us or leaves us to die, destroy it all, and instead, in its place, give us all the same health care that every other civilized country on Earth has: Universal, free, compassionate, and full of life,” Moore wrote.
Moore’s sentiments echo what some lawmakers have highlighted as tensions between Americans and health insurance agencies in the wake of Thompson’s death.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said denied claims from a health insurance company could be interpreted by people struggling to afford health-related costs as “an act of violence” against them. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also said in a recent interview that the shooting could be a warning “to everyone in the health care system,” adding that “people can be pushed only so far.”