Assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO allegedly used AI to deny sick people coverage

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brain Thompson was killed in Midtown Manhattan earlier this week, and with the suspect currently on the run, the public has begun digging into a potential motive for the grim assassination.

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With police having yet to make an arrest, publications have begun looking into UnitedHealthcare, and one of the points leading to a possible motive that has gained some attention is a lawsuit filed against UnitedHealthcare in November 2023. The lawsuit filed by two now-deceased individuals, but still ongoing and yet to reach a final conclusion, alleges UnitedHealthcare pressed employees to use an algorithm designed to evaluate how long a patient would be staying based on their condition and issue denials for coverage. Moreover, the suit alleges internally, UnitedHealthcare knew the algorithm had an error rate of approximately 90%.

Notably, the lawsuit specifically states that UnitedHealth and its subsidiary, NaviHealth, are using a computer algorithm reportedly called nH Predict to "systematically deny claims" for coverage for beneficiaries struggling to recover from illnesses while in nursing homes. A UnitedHealth spokesperson responded to the suit, stating the company doesn't use its NaviHealth predict tool to make coverage determinations and that the "lawsuit has no merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously."

A possible motive of the individual who shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was the company's increased frequency of insurance claim denials. This theory was partly backed up by the recent reports claiming the individual wrote "deny," "defend," and "depose" on the shell casings of the bullets that were used to shoot the UnitedHealthcare CEO. These words are reportedly a reference to the book written by Rutgers Law professor Jay M. Feinman, "Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It".