BREAKING: UnitedHealthcare (Change Healthcare) CEO Shot Ahead of Possibly the Largest Data Breach Settlement in History
Antitrust, insider trading, ransoms, and lawsuits...oh my!
This morning, UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson was shot and killed leaving a hotel in NYC.
As soon as I heard United Healthcare, my interested was piqued. I wrote about the extremely shady merging of United Health Group and a multitude of other healthcare companies. If you look up ANTITRUST or MONOPOLY, you might find a picture of this merger. I covered it here 👇
UnitedHealth Group, officials sued over Justice Department probe
The lawsuit alleges that the company never established proper firewalls between Optum and UnitedHealthcare as required by its own policy and as it told a court when the Justice Department took the company to trial in 2022 in an unsuccessful attempt to block Optum's acquisition of Change Healthcare.
Among the 11 individual defendants named in the lawsuit are UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty, chairman Stephen Hemsley and UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
The lawsuit alleges that UnitedHealth officials were aware of the investigation since at least October. In that four-month period, Mr. Hemsley and Mr. Thompson are accused of selling "substantial amounts of their personally held UnitedHealth stock while in possession of material non-public information."
Despite the incredible stench of fraud, and a judge with clearly conflicted interests (that should have recused himself), UnitedHealthcare acquired Change Healthcare (among others).
UnitedHealth closes acquisition of Change Healthcare
DOJ argued that if the deal closed, UnitedHealth would have access to a bevy of data on competitor health plans, which it could use to gain a competitive advantage. It also said that the potential for UnitedHealth to misuse its competitors' data would push other insurers to be less innovative.
Judge Carl Nelson, however, ruled that the feds failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove its theory. UnitedHealth executives testified that they already have access to competitors' data through Optum's payer-agnostic services and that misusing that data would deal a significant financial blow to the company.
Regrettably I neglected to follow up on this story, assuming my source who initially tipped me to this fuckery would’ve mentioned the re-opening of an investigation. One should never assume…
Anywho, as it turns out the DOJ re-opened the case after the merger went through. Why? To investigate whether proper firewalls had been put into place to protect customer information. And apparently the now deceased Thompson took a page out of the Congressional Book of Insider Trading and dumped his shares, just ahead the DOJ investigation becoming public knowledge. Which is only sometimes frowned upon. It’s cafeteria frowning. Pick and choose. I digress…
So this investigation reopening business became public in February of 2024.
👉 FEBRUARY 2024
But the Wall Street Journal in February 2024 reported the Department of Justice re-opened its case, even after the merger went through, to investigate:
whether the companies properly set up a so-called firewall to prevent customer information from flowing between divisions of the merged company.
The lawsuit claimed Thompson knew about the investigation as early as October 2023 and sold 31% of his company shares, making a $15 million profit, 11 days before the Journal publicized the probe. The Journal report sent UnitedHealth’s stock sinking 5%.
The lawsuit, which remains active, was seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages from UnitedHealth and the executives named in the suit, including Thompson.
The Southern District of New York declined to comment. UnitedHealthcare did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. (source)
This jogged my memory to another big event that everyone seems to have forgotten about in February of 2024. One of the largest data breach cyber attacks in history. That attack happened at Change Healthcare (which is United Healthcare). The company that the DOJ had just reopened its investigation into customer information security issues, insider trading, and fraud.
👉 February 21, 2024
Change Healthcare Cyberattack
Change Healthcare is providing support for people concerned about their personal data due to the criminal cyberattack on Change Healthcare systems.
On February 21, 2024, Change Healthcare became aware of deployment of ransomware in its computer system. Once discovered, Change Healthcare quickly took steps to stop the activity, disconnected and turned off systems to prevent further impact, began an investigation and contacted law enforcement. Change Healthcare’s security team worked around the clock with several top security experts to address the matter and understand what happened. Change Healthcare has not identified evidence this incident spread beyond Change Healthcare.
Change Healthcare: Biggest data leak in the US healthcare sector
After a cyberattack on Change Healthcare earlier this year, there is now certainty. Medical data on almost a third of the US population was leaked.
Following a ransomware attack in February earlier this year, UnitedHealth Group confirms a data breach affecting more than 100 million people. At the beginning of May, UnitedHealth admitted that a third of the US population could have been affected by the incident. Now, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights has updated the total number of people affected on its data breach portal. This corresponds to 100 million affected Americans.
The stolen data includes insurance information, medical documents, payment data and social security numbers. The attackers exploited a security vulnerability at UnitedHealth subsidiary Change Healthcare [--] the largest payment service provider in the US healthcare sector.
Brian Thompson was headed to an investor conference when he was shot this morning, and according to reports, he was going to deliver some great news.
He was slated to speak at an investor meeting at the Hilton Hotel soon after the shooting. According to a release from United Healthcare on Tuesday, he would announce the company's hugely profitable 2025 financial outlook, including expected revenues upwards of $450 billion.
However it also appears that the data breach “oopsie” happens to be coming to a head as well. The plaintiff’s (plaintiff = 100 million Americans) attorneys are meeting with the judge in less than two weeks. I can’t imagine that this wouldn’t be part of the “financial outlook” for United Healthcare, considering that it affected around ONE THIRD of Americans.
Let’s review the data breach:
The HIPAA Journal reports that in the nine months ending on September 30, 2024, Change’s parent firm United Health Group had incurred $1.521 billion in direct breach response costs, and $2.457 billion in total cyberattack impacts.
👆That’s before the lawsuit settlements have even been discussed!!!
Those costs include $22 million the company admitted to paying their extortionists — a ransomware group known as BlackCat and ALPHV — in exchange for a promise to destroy the stolen healthcare data.
That ransom payment went sideways when the affiliate who gave BlackCat access to Change’s network said the crime gang had cheated them out of their share of the ransom. The entire BlackCat ransomware operation shut down after that, absconding with all of the money still owed to affiliates who were hired to install their ransomware.
A few days after BlackCat imploded, the same stolen healthcare data was offered for sale by a competing ransomware affiliate group called RansomHub.
So the data breach thing was a big fucking mess. They paid the ransom, the criminals shockingly didn’t hold up their end of the bargain, and all the data ended up for sale somewhere else anyway. The data belonging to ONE THIRD of the American population.
And a settlement is on the horizon…
Change Healthcare readies for data breach settlement
Giles Bruce - 8 hours ago
Change Healthcare will soon meet with a federal judge to discuss a possible settlement agreement over the data breach that affected 100 million Americans.
The UnitedHealth Group claims processing subsidiary was hit with a bevy of class-action lawsuits after the February ransomware attack that exposed the personal and health data of as many as 1 in 3 Americans. A federal judge later consolidated the lawsuits to Minnesota.
Change Healthcare's attorneys are scheduled to meet with U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank to discuss settlement talks Jan. 30, while the plaintiffs' lawyers will have a similar meeting Dec. 18, according to court documents. A potential settlement could set a record for healthcare, as the Change breach is the largest in the sector's industry.
Change Healthcare Data Breach Settlement Talks To Be Explored Early in MDL
Posted on December 3, 2024 by Dissent
Parties involved in the federal Change Healthcare data breach lawsuits have been ordered to meet separately with a U.S. Magistrate Judge over the next two months, to discuss the most effective structure for settlement talks and the optimum timing for when negotiations should begin that may provide payouts to millions of Americans.
The potential Change Healthcare settlement talks will get underway early in the litigation, which emerged after a massive data breach was announced in February 2024, when it was disclosed that hackers had gained access to the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, medical records, insurance details and other sensitive data of up to 100 million individuals.
Just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if someone who is down to illegally trade with insider knowledge would also be down to get involved in a giant ransom scheme. Just to be clear, I am not positing that this happened. I’m just noting that a murder in broad daylight, ahead of an investor meeting, that will surely have to address this massive cyber data blunder (and subsequent settlement payouts), looks pretty suspicious.
I don’t know who shot Brian Thompson or why, but United Health Group/Care, Change Health, and Optum, along with everything and everyone associated stinks to high fucking hell.
Someone should let the new administration know that there’s a racketeering gang taking over the entire healthcare industry 😂
I have more, but it’s going to be another post.
The veracity of all high-profile deaths should be suspect, especially if the shooter poses in front of the camera with perfect centering and lighting, and where the target would clearly like to get away from all his legal problems (aka go underground). The CEO of United Health would be an elite which means fakery abounds.
It would totally not surprise me that this is faked and he is still alive.