Michael Moore pens letter after Luigi Mangione arrest for CEO killing: 'I condemn murder'
Michael Moore is weighing in on the United Healthcare CEO shooting − and responding to the alleged assassin.
The storied documentarian behind projects like "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Bowling for Columbine" reacted to a handwritten note police said they found among suspect Luigi Mangione's belongings, where authorities say Mangione railed against health insurance executives and reportedly wrote, "These parasites had it coming."
"It's not often that my work gets a killer five-star review from an actual killer," the filmmaker, whose 2007 movie "Sicko" explored the American health insurance system, quipped in an open letter posted to his Substack Friday.
Moore turned the question "do you condemn this violence?" on its head in the letter, accusing the healthcare system of murder instead and its donors and political supporters as accomplices.
"We pay more people to deny care than to give it," Moore wrote. "1 million doctors to give care, 1.4 million brutes in cubicles doing their best to stop doctors from giving that care."
Mangione − who is accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson over a deep-seated resentment of the insurance industry − has become a cult-like star on the internet. The murder has served as a lightning rod for larger American ire over what many see as a broken healthcare system.
"The anger is 1000% justified," Moore wrote, "And I'm not going to tamp it down or ask people to shut up. I want to pour gasoline on that anger."
Though Moore wrote that he was "pacifist," his letter lent legitimacy to the rebuke of the healthcare system some have expressed after the killing.
"Yes, I condemn murder," he wrote, "and that's why I condemn America's broken, vile, rapacious, bloodthirsty, unethical, immoral health care industry and I condemn every one of the CEOs who are in charge of it and I condemn every politician who takes their money and keeps this system going instead of tearing it up, ripping it apart, and throwing it all away."
Moore also pointed to the disparate responses of some portions of the American public and the political establishment.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle condemned Mangione's actions and violence as a means of change. Some Americans, on the other hand, have argued the company and others like it deserved payback.
Moore pointed specifically to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who said at a press conference: "Violence can never be used to address political differences," after Mangione was apprehended by police at a McDonald's in Shapiro's state.
"Our Democratic leaders all chimed in to say, 'In America, we don't solve our problems and our ideological disputes with violence!' and that there's 'no place for political violence' in America," Moore wrote in response, "No place for political violence? America's entire history is defined by political violence," citing the massacre of Native Americans, slavery and the Gaza war.
"People across America are not celebrating the brutal murder of a father of two kids from Minnesota. They are screaming for help, they are telling you what's wrong, they are saying that this system is not just and it is not right and it cannot continue," he wrote, "They want retribution. They want justice. They want health care."
Moore then took on the "mainstream media," accusing outlets of sterilizing coverage of the crime in order to prevent civil unrest.
"They're so busy telling you not to riot and not to participate in an uprising against their advertisers and campaign funders that they won’t tell you what this really is — a RICH ON RICH crime!" Moore wrote.
Moore called Mangione a "scion of a family that's enriched themselves off a broken healthcare system." He described a privileged young man with "an ax to grind against another multi-millionaire." Mangione attended elite universities, was valedictorian of his high school and was born into a wealthy Baltimore family that owns country clubs and health care facilities.
The documentarian ended the letter by reaffirming it is not an endorsement of Mangione but a rallying cry for change.
"Don't get me wrong. No one needs to die," Moore wrote, "I have a solution that does not involve any violence."
He proposed universal healthcare, listing Scotland, Uruguay, Taiwain and Canada as models. Those countries all have nationalized healthcare systems that provide for nearly all residents regardless of income.
"Throw this entire system in the trash," Moore argued. "Dismantle this immoral business that profits off the lives of human beings and monetizes our deaths, that murders us or leaves us to die, destroy it all, and instead, in its place, give us all the same health care that every other civilized country on Earth has."
This story has been updated to clarify language.
Contributing: Christopher Cann, Jorge L. Ortiz, Medora Lee, Joey Garrison, Paste BN; Reuters