Progressive Congressman Ro Khanna says he sympathizes with slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but also notes that the killing has reignited a national conversation about inequities in the U.S. health care system. said in an interview Sunday that he was not surprised.
“It was horrible,” the California Democrat said on ABC this week about the murder of Mr. Thompson, who was survived by his widow and two sons, ages 16 and 19. Two children, and…there is no justification for violence.
“But I wasn’t surprised by the outpouring that followed.”
Khanna told host Martha Raddatz that he agreed with what fellow liberal and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders recently wrote on social media: Meanwhile, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. Healthcare is a human right. We need Medicare for all. ”
Khanna noted that the Vermont senator supports a single-payer national health care system seen in other wealthy democracies. We are winning,” he said.
Police have not released a motive for the Dec. 4 shooting death of Thompson, but the apparently targeted nature of the attack and the shell casings found at the murder scene include “delay,” “rejection,” and possibly The words “” were written on it. Abdication’ suggests that this may be related to the routine refusal of payments to many Americans by the largely privatized US healthcare industry.
Although medical debt has emerged as a leading cause of bankruptcies in the United States, commercial health insurance companies such as United Healthcare are among the wealthiest companies in the country. Thompson, 50, who lived near UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters in Minnesota and was being asked to make $10 million a year, prepared to attend a meeting with the company’s investors outside a Manhattan hotel. While he was there, he was shot dead by a man wearing a mask.
News of Thompson’s death was met with ridicule rather than sympathy by many. An example of a widely shared example of this sentiment was a social media post by Anthony Zenkas of the Columbia School of Social Work. Its contents are as follows: Wait, I’m sorry, but today we commemorate the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who die needlessly every year so that insurance executives like Brian Thompson can become millionaires. I will. ”
Khanna said Sunday that his position as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives does not exempt him from absurd insurance disputes.
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Khanna acknowledged that this pales in comparison to people with cancer, heart disease, and diabetes who are fighting for their lives and are denied coverage, but added, “As a member of Congress, I want to give United Health Care a point.” I had them deny me a prescription for a nasal spray (a $100 pump spray). I couldn’t get them to reverse this. So imagine what normal people are dealing with. ”
Khanna said there are some modest steps the U.S. can take to begin addressing inequities in health care at home, including caps on out-of-pocket costs that many Americans rely on. He said that includes requiring private insurance companies to cover “everything” covered by Medicare.
Medicare is the United States’ public health insurance program for people age 65 and older and people with disabilities.
“We need to understand that people with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and insurance are not getting the care they need. They are stuck paying huge medical bills. .”
