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The broad-daylight assassination of a health insurance CEO catapulted Mangione to international recognition. Whether you see him as a folk hero or unjustifiable murderer depends on your moral and political views. In fact, he may represent both extremes.

In December 2025, after long and careful planning, he shot his unsuspecting victim in the back. His movie-star good looks won him a large fan base of admirers and supporters. Some of them were granted seats at his ongoing trial as “journalists” when they might be better described as groupies. Presumably, those supporters agree that insurance companies of all types–not just health insurers–routinely use tactics Mangione addressed when he inscribed on cartridge casings from his handgun: delay, deny, depose. His words may express a known although unofficial mantra of insurers: delay, deny, defend.

First Example of an Alternative Solution

I’m reminded of a traffic accident I was involved in thirty-some years ago when, as a motorcyclist, I was struck by a car on an interstate highway. The car was in the center lane and abruptly veered in front of me. As the driver later stated, his car unexpectedly lost power, apparently because of an electrical problem; unaware of my position in his “blind spot” (admittedly my fault for being there), he instinctively reacted by switching to my lane in an effort to reach the shoulder.

The result: I rear-ended him at thirty or forty miles per hour even though I desperately tried to slow from at least 50 mph. My 600-pound bike struck his rear bumper squarely dead center, and my front wheel was mashed into the motor. Bike and rider did a complete somersault but landed separately. Because I wore a full helmet and a leather suit, my injuries amounted to a few scratches. (Leather slides on pavement, while cloth garments grab the road surface and can cause far more injuries.)

What does all this have to do with insurance company strategies? When I filed my claim against the other party’s auto insurer, I gained first-hand knowledge of delay, deny, defend. My phone calls were left unanswered until I left the following message for the adjuster: “Unless you return this call within 24 hours, I will begin calling your chain of command, up to and including your chief executive.” I had researched the names and listed them in hierarchically ascending order, promising to keep going until I found someone whose “head was screwed on straight.”

All I had asked for was roughly $2,000 for the itemized cost of repairing my badly damaged motorcycle–nothing for personal injury.

I learned the value of leveraging hierarchical power against itself–a maneuver that has proved effective in multiple situations when I felt unjustly blocked by institutions. Twenty years’ experience as a management employee of a giant corporation had taught me the supreme power superiors hold over scared underlings. However, persons outside the chain of command can use that power to their benefit.

Within minutes, I received a call from the adjuster, who agreed to send me the requested money.

Mangione was evidently reacting to specific cases when he and/or people he knew were denied claims. What he could have done instead of committing murder was appeal to the huge vulnerability of hierarchies, namely, fear of one’s own superiors–embarrassing the leaders, putting the leadership’s unjust policies under public scrutiny, etc.

Yet, he chose the route of murder and the likelihood of arrest and punishment.

An Example of Successfully Defeating Another Kind of Bureaucracy

The legally and morally defensible jiujitsu I used to defeat the insurance company is just as effective against any bureaucratic institution. There’s no need to use violence against institutional or corporate bad deeds, although I hasten to add that undemocratic, unconstitutional, and unlawful governments may be exceptions to the rule. They make their own rules.

Years ago, one of my children was clearly eligible for the valedictorian position in our local public high school, but the school superintendent (I’ll call him “Dan”) had a personal friend whose daughter was running a close second. Dan decided that his friend’s daughter should be valedictorian, even though she evidently had her computer with her in at least some crucial exams. That meant she had access to information essential for success in the exams. During several meetings with Dan, I pointed out the irregularity, and he agreed, calling it a “technology” problem. That was in late summer between Junior and Senior years, just before students normally applied to colleges.

Months elapsed and Dan took no action. I wrote to his boss, the chair of the town’s Board of Education, responsible for all public schools in the municipality. The chairperson evidently relayed my complaint to Dan, who responded by declaring the two contending candidates “co-valedictorians,” an unusual compromise. The girl who had assumed she was a shoo-in for first place burst into tears at the news, but the high school principal was the sacrificial lamb, forced into early retirement. That was Dan’s way of shifting punishment onto an underling rather than admitting his own wrongdoing: he took no immediate action to report the problem I had presented to him months earlier.

I got a fuming phone call from him. He blamed me for the principal’s removal, but I’m pretty sure his own boss–the Board of Ed chair–had privately taken him to task for stonewalling me.

Example No. 3: Non-Violent Resistance Within a Hierarchy

Yup, it can even work when you are part of the bureaucracy.

As a not-so-high-ranking manager within one of the world’s largest corporations in the 1980s, I had to deal with a peer known for his combative manner. Since I had to rely on him to approve certain requests–“special bid” pricing for large customers at approved discounts–he sometimes argued against lowering the bulk price while I often argued in favor of it. On one occasion, he remarked that he was “tired of fighting” with me. Prior to that meeting, I had prepared a draft letter outlining what I considered his numerous unjustified obstructions of legitimate special bids. I then handed him a draft of the letter and said, “I don’t fight–I write.” While he began reading the letter, I left his office and returned to mine.

Minutes later, he came to my office, visibly upset and asking me not to send the letter, which listed both our immediate superiors as carbon-copy recipients. I assured him that I had no intention of submitting the letter to anyone, and that I anticipated that our future meetings would be in the company’s best interest, namely, approval of justifiable requests for discounts.

Conclusions

My examples show how relatively easily large organizations can be peacefully influenced to do the right thing. No bombs, guns, fists, or even harsh words are needed. Seriously, if I could do it, anyone could do it.

That’s why Mangione and like-minded victims of stonewalling need never resort to violence.

Mangione: Symbol of “Leftist Aggression”?

Meanwhile, rightist podcasters describe a “wave of violence” from the political left. They mention Mangione, Trump’s several foiled assassination attempts, the Charlie Kirk shooter, etc. It seems unfair, since these few named examples don’t add up to significant numbers compared to victims of right-wing assailants. Those victims could include extra-legal killings of suspected drug-runners in the Caribbean; civilian casualties in Gaza, Lebanon, and other US-funded military attacks; the growing number of worldwide fatalities resulting from the dissolution of USAID by Musk; and so on, ad infinitum.

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