Data scientist Luigi Mangione sacrificed his life for the betterment of the United States—but he did so by taking another’s. The question is: was he a hero? I’d say so.
26-year-old Mangione was charged in New York State Supreme Court with first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder (one described as an act of ‘terrorism’), two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the second degree, four counts in the third and one in the fourth and a count of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the second degree. On Dec. 4, 2024, Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare CEO was shot outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown and was pronounced dead at 7:13 a.m. at Mt. Sinai Hospital. The indictment was announced by D.A. Alvin Bragg.
Arrested five days after the attack in a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, Mangione was found with a gun, bullets, numerous fake IDs, and cash in his possession. In addition to his charges in New York, he faced forgery, firearms possession without a license, tampering with records/identification, possessing instruments of crime, and providing false identification to Pennsylvania police.
Despite these crimes, instead of being recognized as a villain, to some, he was rather looked upon as a hero—anger personified throughout the United States—and rightfully so. The force driving this anger is against health insurers and the United Healthcare System. While CEOs like Thompson made millions every year—even being one of the company’s highest-paid executives and the company as a whole bringing in $281 billion in revenue in 2023—Americans cannot even live with the certainty that if something were to happen to them or their loved ones, that they would have the right to healthcare.
According to PBS, only 12% of Americans believe the healthcare system is generally handled well, and eight in every ten Americans say that they are at least moderately concerned about getting quality access to healthcare when they need it, some fearing bankruptcy. Is it truly just for the working class driving our nation to be denied their own health while the elite sit back with millions in their pockets without a worry?
To be clear, we as Americans should not resort to murder with every injustice—this does not solve underlying issues and society would descend into chaos. Society relies on justice systems to punish wrongdoing. However—in this case with Thompson—what does justice look like when justice goes to the highest bidder?
When the state of affairs involved a CEO earning over $10.2 million annually, it could not have been trusted that justice would be served. This has been proved in the past, a prior example to this predicament being Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito accepting ‘favors’ from billionaires and ignoring calls for recusal regarding the Jan. 6 case.
In this case, it is clearly understood why Mangione is seen to be a hero.
For those who cannot see Mangione as a hero to any extent, what do you say to those who watched their family members suffer before them because they couldn’t access healthcare—especially when it was Thompson who caused this suffering and many deaths? Mangione’s actions were a way to protect the people from future misconduct from the CEO and to make a point. Mangione felt so strongly about making this point that he, a young, well-educated man with an Ivy League education from UPenn and surely a bright future ahead, essentially gave up his life as well to do so.
