The suspect in the case has garnered sympathy and online fandom partly because of people’s problems with the health insurance industry. The majority of insured US adults had at least one issue, including denial of claims, with their health insurance in the span of a year, according to a survey released in June 2023 by KFF, a nonprofit health policy research group.
Amazon has pulled the merchandise from the website for violating the company’s rules, according to a person familiar with Amazon’s decision making. It’s unclear how many people bought items emblazoned with the phrase.
However, “deny, defend, depose” merchandise remains on sale on eBay. The phrase itself doesn’t violate its rules, but “items that glorify or incite violence, including those that celebrate the recent murder of UHC CEO Brian Thompson, are prohibited”, a company spokesperson told CNN.
Mangione was spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and a McDonald’s employee called the police. The restaurant’s page on Google and Yelp has since been flooded with negative reviews, calling workers “rats” and “snitches.”
A Google spokesperson said that the “reviews violate our policies and are being removed”. Also, additional protections are being added to the profile page to prevent more of these reviews.
Commenters shared a similar sentiment on Yelp. However, Yelp turned off commenting on the McDonald’s location’s page.
Fundraisers on GoFundMe also popped up for Mangione’s legal fund; however, those have since been removed. A GoFundMe spokesperson said that it “prohibits fundraisers for the legal defense of violent crimes” and that donors have been refunded.
The killing has generated mixed feelings online. In a Facebook post by UnitedHealth Group expressing sadness about UnitedHealthcare CEO Thompson’s death received 62,000 reactions — 57,000 of them laughing emojis. UnitedHealth Group is the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, the division that Thompson ran.
“Limitations on access to care due to claims denials have absolutely been a source of frustration for a long time,” said Kaye Pestaina, KFF’s director of Program on Patient and Consumer Protections.