Wine tumblers, sweatshirts: Amazon keeps having to pull merch related to UnitedHealthcare CEO murder
Amazon said the items violated its guidelines
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Amazon has been racing to remove merchandise sympathetic to the gunman accused of killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson from its online marketplace.
Police arrested a suspect in the shooting, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, on Monday in Pennsylvania.
Merchandise with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose" — the words reportedly written on the bullets used in the shooting of Thompson — have been cropping up on Amazon items like hoodies, mugs, caps, pint glasses, and more, according to the Washington Post.
Some have taken the three words to be a reference to the 2010 book “Delay, Defend, Deny: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”
The book is critical of the privatized and profit-driven US healthcare industry. It is now sold out on several online book retailers.
Amazon isn't the only retailer to experience an influex of merchandise related to the shooting, with Etsy, eBay, TikTok and other online marketplaces also impacted.
Amazon told the Washington Post is was removing merchandise using the phrase, claiming it violates their guidelines.
Amazon did not specify which guidelines were violated by the products.
The Washington Post asked eBay about the items available on its platform. The online auction site said that items with the phrase "deny, defend, depose" are not banned, but "items that glorify or incite violence, including those that celebrate the recent murder of...Thompson, are prohibited."
GoFundMe has also had to pull pages made in support of the suspected gunman.
An spokesperson for the charitable platform told The Independent: “GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit fundraisers for the legal defense of violent crimes. The fundraisers have been removed from our platform and all donors have been refunded.”
The merchandise and fundraising efforts reflect the mood seen among some social media users, who have used the shooting of the health insurance executive as launchpad for broader criticisms of the US healthcare industry in general.
A report by NBC News found that “internet slueths” who typically would jump at the chance to track down a criminal alongside their followers were sitting out the manhunt for Thompson’s killer. One, a woman named Savannah Sparks, wrote that she and her community were sitting out the search, but would offer up “concepts of thoughts and prayers.”
“It’s, you know, claim denied on my prayers there,” she said, clearly referencing the denial of healthcare insurance claims.
Healthcare costs in the US far outpace inflation, and the for-profit model used in the US incentivizes companies to reject claims rather than ensure customers receive treatment.
According to KFF, a leading health policy organization, some insurers reject nearly one in five claims made by consumers. Medical bankruptcy is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Mangione made an appearance Blair County Courthouse, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. He was denied bail at the hearing and is fighting extradition back to New York.