Deny, Delay, Depose: The Tragedy of Health Insurance in the U.S.

When UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed on December 4th in New York, the casings of the bullets used to kill him had “deny”, “delay” and “depose” written on them. These so-called “three Ds” of the insurance industry describe how companies go out of their way to get out of paying claims.

Even before a suspect was identified and arrested, popular sentiment was broadly with the shooter. The health insurance industry in the United States is so hated that people sympathized with the motives they ascribed to the shooter. Defying the traditional left-right political poles, the real division came through: working-class people all over the political spectrum who have experience with the health insurance industry could at least understand why someone would commit this act.

To look more at what the shooting tells us about society, we’re joined today by Jacquie Luqman, host of Darker than Blue on WPFW radio.