Lawmakers target drug middlemen as insurance boss' murder divides Americans

Washington, DC — Days after a powerful US health insurance executive was shot dead in Manhattan with a suspect's manifesto indicating his frustration against the healthcare system in America, a group of lawmakers has decided to introduce a bill in Congress that if passed will force health insurers to sell their pharmacy businesses.

The proposed legislation is backed by Democrat Elizabeth Warren, Republican Josh Hawley, Republican Representative Diana Harshbarger, Democratic Representative Jake Auchincloss and others and comes on the heels of the December 4 killing of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth's insurance arm, one of the largest health insurers in the US.

Thompson's killing, the manhunt and subsequent arrest of suspect Luigi Mangione and his handwritten manifesto have triggered global headlines, generated endless discussions on social media and sent shockwaves through the American business sector.

Officials say Mangione's manifesto sought to justify the killing as a reaction to "corruption" in the healthcare industry.

On Wednesday, Warren warned her bill would stop the intermediaries who have been hiking up prices of medicines and "manipulating the market."

Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), she said, "have manipulated the market to enrich themselves — hiking up drug costs, cheating employers, and driving small pharmacies out of business."

She said her new bipartisan bill with Hawley "will rein in these middlemen."

PBMs are third-party companies that manage the distribution of drugs for large employers and insurance companies, such as UnitedHealth, and use their size to negotiate with drug makers and pharmacies.

They function inside the healthcare system, for example, Kaiser Permanente, and have been at the centre of drug pricing conversations from the streets of America to Congress.

Hawley, who is backing the bill, said the health insurance companies in the US "have gotten huge and rich by buying up everything in sight and charging patients more and more for less care."

"It's time to start putting patients first. My bill with Senator Warren would prevent insurance companies from buying up pharmacies and doctors’ practices," he said.

Anger and glee

If the bill advances and becomes a law, it would force major industry players such as CVS Health Corp, Cigna Group and UnitedHealth Group Inc to quit drug-dispensing operations in three years.

Meanwhile, shares of UnitedHealth and CVS Health plummeted after the lawmakers said they are trying to break the PBMs.

UnitedHealth shares fell 5 percent, CVS Health dropped 4.3 percent and Cigna fell 4.4 percent. Shares of Peers Elevance, Humana and Centene dropped between 1 percent and 3 percent.

Thompson's killing has ignited angry as well as celebratory posts from many Americans.

Many are outraged over the murder, while others are sharing their own tales of having health coverage rejected.

Some have even hailed Mangione, the scion of a prominent Maryland family, as Robin Hood and there are also those who have reached out to Mangione's attorney, Thomas Dickey, to pay for the suspect's legal bills.

Shedding light on the Americans' growing frustration with the healthcare system and insurance providers, Senator Bernie Sanders, a staunch critic of the American healthcare industry called Thompson's murder "outrageous" in an interview with HuffPost.

But he also said that the fury against the insurance firms sparked by Thompson's murder explains that millions of Americans "understand that healthcare is a human right and that you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed health care for people while they make billions of dollars in profit."