Bill Burr became the latest to weigh in on the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and based on his words, he doesn't have a surplus of sympathy for the slain insurance executive.
The 56-year-old made his remarks on the latest episode of his Anything Better? podcast that he hosts with comedian Paul Virzi. "Paul, what's going on in New York?" Burr asked around the beginning of the episode. "We were just talking about it. That CEO got f--king whacked."
"You know what's funny, I was sitting there reading an article, and a guy was like, 'Oh my God, he's such a great guy. He had a wife and kids, and he's such a great guy,'" he continued. "And then you find out, he and the other guys he's working for are getting sued for $121 million for dumping a stock, and not letting the other people know. It's like, there's your motive!"
Burr was referring to a class-action lawsuit filed in May that accused Thompson and three other UnitedHealth Group executives of insider trading. The suit claims Thompson sold $15 million in shares when he knew the company was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
"What is more heartless than a f--king CEO of a corporation?" Burr quipped. "In health care, the decisions that they make. This is the thing—I'm not saying what happened should have happened, but for them to be like, 'Why would anybody want to do this?' It's like they're denying claims and people are dying, the food supply is poisoned. It's like the f--king motive out there is wild."
"It's right up there with getting life insurance," he noted. "The second you get life insurance, whoever is the beneficiary immediately has motive. You are now worth such and such amount of money."
Later, Burr brought up a bit he said he's been doing in his act about how it was better when the mob was running things because "they were regulated simply because what they were doing was illegal."
"And I know that they were making a bunch of money, but they couldn't be flashing around," he said. "They had wars, they whacked each other and sh-t, and I was saying like, 'How f--king great would it be to see like, you know, the head of f--king Walmart gets whacked by the head of f--king Target. Have a nice, old-fashioned f--king war and just thin the herd and keep everybody honest.'
"But the problem is, those guys are all on the legal side of stealing and all of those politicians, they give the politicians the heads up and then they turn around, they make all this f--king money," Burr explained. "They're gangsters, dude, f--king gangsters, and then when one of them gets whacked or something it's like, 'Oh look he was such a good guy.' It's a dirty game. Healthcare—dirty game."
A man suspected of being the gunman who allegedly killed Thompson outside a hotel in midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4 was picked up by police earlier today in Pennsylvania. Authorities are still investigating a motive, but bullets found at the crime scene reportedly had the words "deny," "depose," and "defend" on them, appearing to reference a 2010 book critical of the insurance industry.
