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The Minnesota headquarters of UnitedHealth were rocked by two large protests just months before the CEO of the company’s insurance division was executed in Manhattan Wednesday — as the boss’s former security provider said he was shocked he didn’t have anyone guarding him on his trip to the Big Apple.
Slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, was stationed at the company’s headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota, where more than 100 demonstrators descended in April and July to protest an alleged “epidemic” of claims denials, The Wall Street Journal reports.
During the July protest, eleven demonstrators were arrested, including people from Minnesota, Illinois, Maine, Texas, West Virginia and New York, according to Minnetonka police.
The People’s Action Institute, which led the April and July protests, said it was shocked by Thompson’s death — but still used the tragedy to highlight what it said was a “crisis of denials” in America.
“We know there is a crisis of gun violence in America. There is also a crisis of denials of care by private health insurance corporations including UnitedHealth,” the group said in a statement Wednesday.
“The People’s Action Care Over Cost campaign gives people a productive, nonviolent, democratic way to create change on this problem. Both of these crises must end. Our political leaders must act on both,” they added.