Friends Struggle With Executive's Loss

During Wednesday's trivia night at Scoreboard Bar & Grill, a mile from the company's Minnetonka, Minn., headquarters, bartender Dee Dee Anderson felt the absence of one of her favorite customers. Thompson, or "B.T.," was known as an affable guy who often stopped by with colleagues for nachos at happy hour, preferred frosty mugs for his beer and didn't get irritated when orders backed up in the kitchen, she said.

The next morning in Hollidaysburg, Pa., marked a different remembrance. A handful of people cheered on the very man accused of killing Thompson. Defendant Luigi Mangione was at back-to-back hearings on state charges and his extradition to New York.

A cold dichotomy faces those mourning Thompson. "There's no connection to the fact that he was a person," Anderson said.

With his death on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk on Dec. 4, Thompson was transformed from a highly paid executive unknown to most Americans into a potent symbol for the frustration many people feel about the cost of healthcare and their access to it.

An Emerson College poll of 1,000 registered voters released Tuesday found that while 68% of people overall called Thompson's assassination unacceptable, 41% of those ages 18 to 29 considered the shooting either somewhat or completely acceptable, and 19% of voters in this age group were "neutral"-a result that dumbfounded one of Thompson's former colleagues. "My perspective is that Brian worked all of his life to make healthcare better," he said.

Heartland success

Thompson, 50, left behind two teenage sons. His wife and other family members declined requests for comment citing the intense public attention the case has attracted.

Thompson was a heartland success story. He'd grown up on a farm in Jewell, Iowa, where his father worked with grain elevators and his mother was a hairdresser. He'd been valedictorian and homecoming king in his high-school class. He went on to graduate with honors from the University of Iowa before ascending the corporate ladder at UnitedHealthcare, where his total annual compensation over the past three years averaged $9.9 million.

Legal troubles shadowed his recent past. Thompson was one of three company executives named in a lawsuit from a Florida pension fund in May, alleging UnitedHealth concealed a Justice Department antitrust investigation from shareholders while insiders sold stock-including $15 million in Thompson's personally held shares.

He was well-regarded by investors and analysts, who credited him with the growth in UnitedHealth's powerful, and lucrative, Medicare business. Thompson, who had an accounting background, was known for having an easygoing approach.

He chewed gum, and while CEO he was called out at least once for it by a colleague during a conversation with employees. He wore quarter-zip pullovers or a sportcoat over a button-down shirt with no tie. He dropped F-bombs.

Health insurers are broadly unpopular and have been for a long time. Many Americans in a moment of need have had to fight for, or been denied, care by insurers whose mandate to maximize profit is an incentive to limit approvals.

Robert Sterling, a 39-yearold mergers-and-acquisitions consultant based in Wichita, Kan., was on a plane on Dec. 11 when he dashed off a post on X lauding Thompson. "This guy-not the person who murdered him in cold blood-was everything that's right and good about America, and the American dream," he wrote.

He was shocked when he checked his X account hours later and found thousands of mostly critical replies, some saying that Hitler and Stalin also came from humble roots.

'The guy stood up'

The vilification of Thompson that proliferated online after his killing "is the exact opposite of what the guy was about," said his former UnitedHealth colleague.

As the Covid-19 pandemic intensified in early 2020, the federal government asked UnitedHealth to help distribute billions in emergency funding to healthcare providers seeking assistance under the Cares Act.

"He immediately told the government we would do that for free. Why? Because we wanted to make sure people had access during Covid," his former associate said. "There's no better example of somebody wanting to do right by healthcare than that."

Thompson was key to making sure 300,000 hospitals and physicians got cash infusions, that by late May 2020 totaled $95 billion, recalled Stephen Parente, a University of Minnesota finance professor who was then chief economist for health policy at the White House. "When it really counted, the guy stood up."

Thompson cherished time with his sons, the former colleague said. They bonded over the Minnesota Timberwolves' strong NBA season last year. Thompson also made a point of being "a dad in the bleachers" at his sons' own games.