The fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel Wednesday morning shocked the city and the nation. But as police searched for the missing gunman in what they called a “premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack,” contempt erupted on social media for the health insurance industry he represented – and his company in particular.

“I’ve seen the mainstream coverage of the assassination of United Healthcare’s CEO on TikTok and I think politicians and industry leaders will want to read the comments and think carefully about them,” wrote political activist Tobita Chow in a post on X, formerly Twitter . In screenshots he shared, TikTok users responded to the story with harsh references to the costly and often confusing for-profit U.S. health insurance system. “Sent prior authorization, denied claims, collections and prayers to his family,” one wrote.

“As someone who is insured through UnitedHealthCare, I can fully understand the actions taken,” one X user wrote in response to a news link about Thompson’s murder, “which is being investigated as a possible homicide,” the statement said law enforcement agencies. “Did he have a pre-existing condition?” asked another. And in an ABC News TikTok about police officers’ efforts to find the killer, one user asked, “Why are they investigating this?”

“I received a push notification to exercise caution as the United Healthcare shooter is still at large,” noted standup comedian Samantha Ruddy in her own X post. “I personally don’t feel like I’m on the shooter’s radar because I’m not the CEO of a highly divisive, multi-billion dollar insurance company.”

Thompson’s violent death outside a hotel where UnitedHealthcare was hosting an investor conference sparked not only scathing jokes but also intense criticism of the insurer he had led since 2021. One image making the rounds online was a chart from personal finance website ValuePenguin that found that UnitedHealthcare denies 32 percent of all in-network claims related to individual health insurance plans – twice the industry average. Some pointed to headlines describing how UnitedHealthcare used an allegedly flawed AI algorithm to assess claims and deny care to seriously ill patients under private Medicare Advantage plans, as described in an ongoing class action lawsuit filed by filed with the estates of two decedents who were denied insurance coverage for their care at an extended care facility.

One of those amplifying this story was right-wing podcaster Tim Pool, who pointed out that Americans across the political spectrum can rarely find consensus when it comes to disdain for their free-market health care system. “It’s actually kind of touching that the only thing that can bring our divided and disunited country together is celebrating the assassination of a health insurance chief,” University of Virginia historian David Austin Walsh wrote on X.

Still, some dissenters sought to shame anyone who made light of the killing. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who unsuccessfully challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2024, drew a strange comparison to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza and Lebanon. “It seems like leftists who oppose the killing of terrorists in the Middle East are supporting the killing of CEOs in midtown Manhattan,” he fumed on X, adding, “Sick.” Both Senator Amy Klobuchar and Gov. Tim Walz, from Minnesota, where UnitedHealthcare is based, expressed their condolences.

While the shooter’s identity and motive are currently unknown, Thompson’s wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News that he had received threats and that they may have had issues with a client’s “lack of reporting.” The NYPD has released surveillance images of the suspect, who was masked and wearing a black jacket with a gray backpack, and offered a $10,000 reward for information in the murder.

Thompson and two other top executives have been named in another ongoing lawsuit against UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group. A firefighters’ pension in the city of Hollywood, Florida, filed the securities fraud class action lawsuit earlier this year, accusing Thompson and his colleagues of selling $120 million of their UnitedHealth stock after they were informed of an antitrust investigation by the company US Department of Justice had found out about the company – but beforehand The investigation became public.

Between the reporting of such alleged profiteering, UnitedHealthcare’s poor reputation, and the disclosure of the millions the company spends on lobbying and Thompson’s $10 million salary, there was little material for vicious riffs. “It is no surprise that gallows humor responds to the assassination of a CEO of a gallows business model,” noted Dr. Steven Thrasher in a post on X. Thrasher, a professor at the Medill School at Northwestern University, is the author of The viral subclassa book about healthcare inequalities that determine who has privileged access to medical resources. “With health insurance, ghouls can choose to live or die depending on how much your life or death impacts shareholder value.”

For once, it also appeared that no extremist factions were as quick to blame ideological opponents for the murder as they typically have been after high-profile shootings in the US in recent years (with the exception of one Fox News commentator who suggested that NYPD would have done this). (I haven’t been able to locate the shooter yet because they were too busy fighting immigration crime.) Online influencers, known for shaping a story before the facts emerge, instead appeared willing to wait , where the case would lead. In the febrile climate of social media, this led to an unusual kind of restraint – almost as unusual as the roadkill of an American businessman.