Natural Born Killers

This Week In Blunders – Feb. 16-22

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” - Bill Gates

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Fans lined up as early as 1:45 a.m. for what the New York Post called, “the hottest ticket in town.”

Professional line sitters charged $25 an hour to hold places for coveted seating in a lower Manhattan courtroom. Luigi Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to gunning down UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, was about to make an appearance.

There was no such enthusiasm for UnitedHealth Group, parent company of UnitedHealthCare. On the same morning, The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive, page-one story reporting that the Justice Department is investigating UnitedHealth Group’s Medicare billing practices.

The article heralded results of the newspaper’s previous reporting:

“A series of articles in The Wall Street Journal last year showed that Medicare paid UnitedHealth billions of dollars for questionable diagnoses. Attorneys with the Justice Department as recently as Jan. 31 interviewed medical providers named in the articles.”

So the health care giant that uses artificial intelligence to deny claims, and has the highest claims denial rate in the industry, 32%, is also suspected of over-billing the federal government to the tune of billions.

Leave it to the New York Post to chronicle the circus: “Free Luigi” T-shirts for $40; a digital sign on a truck portraying Mangione as a saint; starry-eyed girls waving banners in the freezing cold.

It was like a scene ripped from the 1994 romantic crime-action film, “Natural Born Killers.” (Sorry, ladies, but aren’t there other good-looking guys who aren’t currently incarcerated?)

“Yes, I know, but he’s so dreamy!” (Illustration credit: AI Generated.)

“It’s never good for someone to die,” a woman selling T-shirts told the New York Post. “At the same time, it’s not good for millions of people to die because they’re denied crucial medical procedures.”

But Mangione is an unlikely folk hero for the average American buckling under their oppressive weight of outlandish health insurance premiums and denied claims. He may be relatable because he reportedly suffers from chronic back pain, but he’s also an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland real-estate family that can afford to pay his bills.