Luigi Mangione saga exposes America's health care crisis

Police say a note was found on Magione, which read-“frankly, these parasites simply had it coming”. Then came the shocker about Mangione’s background- born into a wealthy family, an Ivy League graduate, he had everything going for him. And then there is the most shocking aspect of all.

How Mangione has turned into something of a folk hero, with many openly supporting the murder of Thompson. A new poll done by Emerson College shows 41 per cent of young people between the ages of 18 to 29 in America believe that Mangione’s actions were “acceptable” while 24 per cent said it was “somewhat acceptable”. 17% said it was “completely acceptable”.

In a country whose health care system is broken, where people have struggled to pay for treatment because of the wretched insurance system, many believe Mangione’s actions speak for the deep anger and frustration that ordinary Americans feel about the health care system.

It has been reported that Brian Thompson, the murdered United Healthcare CEO, was instrumental in increasing his company’s profits by 5 billion dollars in just two years.

According to ‘The New Yorker’, Thompson was behind a move to create an algorithm which kicked old patients out of nursing homes and often denied prior authorisation for things like insulin, pain medicines after surgery for speech therapy.

But what should deeply trouble all of us is the hero worship of a man who killed in cold blood, no matter what the motivation. No one has quite understood why Mangione did what he did. It is assumed that a debilitating back injury may have pushed him over the edge. The fandom is not part of some deep, dark web. It is very much out in the open, especially on social media.

“Don’t Deny My Coverage”

There is even Luigi Mangione apparel for sale on e commerce sites, with T-shirts bearing his face with messages such as “FREE LUIGI” and “In This House, Luigi Mangione Is A Hero, End of Story.” There are hats with the phrase “Don’t Deny My Coverage.”

Sections of the American media meanwhile are fawning over Mangione’s good looks, making him an even bigger hero. While others are even raising funds online for his legal defence. As Donald Trump heads back into the White House next month, his re election and the reactions to Luigi Mangione’s actions only underline how peoples’ faith in institutions has eroded.

They like Trump because he’s seen as a disrupter who will take on the establishment. They may not personally pick up a gun to kill someone, but they admire that Mangione did and through his actions, laid bare the rotten state of health care in America.

Maybe, just maybe, this entire episode will give health insurance companies something to think about in terms of how they operate. Speaking at a Reuters conference in New York some days ago, executives from Pfizer and Amazon said health care companies are taking a step back to better understand patients’ experiences.

“Our health system needs to be better ... There’s a lot of things that should cause a lot of outrage,” Amazon Pharmacy Chief Medical Officer Vin Gupta said. “It’s also true that (the killing) should not have happened. There cannot be this false moral equivalence in our discourse.”