Ben & Yoel Friedman speaking at the Blair County Pennsylvania Courthouse

Brothers Ben (left) and Yoel Friedman of Monroe, N.Y., show their support of Luigi Mangione in front of the Blair County Courthouse on Thursday, December 19, 2024.

The murder of the UnitedHealth CEO has sparked an online and societal debate about America’s health care system as some people, frustrated with insurance companies and their denials of care, question whether his death will lead to change and have praised the killer’s motives as noble.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect in the killing of Brian Thompson, has become the subject of online and in-person admiration as more information about the murder and his background continue to leak out.

Ben Friedman of New York carried a sign outside the courthouse praising Mangione for bravery. “He killed a guy who was killing a lot of people through health care decisions,” Friedman said. “I could never have done what he did, but he has much more courage than I do.

”Friedman also referred to Mangione as privileged in light of growing up in a prominent Maryland real estate family and graduating from an Ivy League college. But those are factors, he said, in his support for Mangione. “It takes a privileged person like Luigi to do something like this to bring about change, because otherwise there is no change and no opportunity to bring about change,” Friedman said. “He did something important for the country.”