FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, December 5, 2024
PRESS CONTACT: Unai Montes, u.montes@peoplesaction.org, 310 962 7369 (Bilingual)
WASHINGTON D.C. – In response to the shooting and death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, People’s Action Institute Executive Director Sulma Arias issued the following statement:
“We were shocked by this horrific act of violence and condemn it; we were not shocked by the outpouring of public anger at UnitedHealthcare in the aftermath. We’ve been working for two years on the issue of care denials, and the research shows that virtually every family in the U.S. has experienced the outrage of having a doctor prescribe a treatment only to have an insurance company like UnitedHealthcare get in the way.
“At the same time that UnitedHealthcare is denying these claims, they are taking in billions of dollars of profit every year. And, to make things worse, corporations have too much power in this country, and they’re blocking political progress that would help millions, just like they’re blocking progress on the epidemic of gun violence, of which this killing was another example.
“So when people have this anger, and they see that the systems around them don’t deal with the problem, we bring people together to channel this private pain into constructive policy change. We’re proud of that work, and we will continue that work. We express our condolences to the family of Brian Thompson and all those affected by gun violence.”
###