In the aftermath of its CEO's stunning assassination, UnitedHealthcare is now threatening legal retaliation against those who criticize the insurance giant online.
Last month, Texas plastic surgeon Elisabeth Potter posted on TikTok and Instagram that she had just been interrupted in the middle of a procedure for a breast cancer patient with a supposedly "urgent" call.
On the other line was a UHC representative, who asked her if it was absolutely necessary that her patient stay overnight post-surgery — a question that appalled the doctor and most everyone who saw the video.
A month after going viral, Potter made an entirely different social media post explaining that she had been contacted by UHC, accused of libel, and subjected to thinly veiled threats of legal retaliation if she didn't comply with the company's demands.
In the letter, the surgeon was told that UHC had never asked her to step out of surgery and only called her because the company believed that her request for her patient's overnight stay — a claim that was eventually denied — was made in error.
Furthermore, the company accused Potter of knowingly sharing "misinformation" and hosting threats against the company's executives because people made references to Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UHC CEO Brian Thompson, in the comments of her videos.
"Your claims are false. You clearly know they are false. You falsely laid the blame for your office's error on UnitedHealthcare publicly, unleashing a firestorm of dangerous misinformation," the letter, which Potter posted in full on her Instagram, reads. "We expect you to promptly correct this publicly by removing your videos and posting a public apology."
This "gaslighting and harassment," as the surgeon calls it, has only strengthened her resolve to speak out about healthcare inequities — and she's going to need it.
As Bloomberg reported around the same time that Potter posted the cease and desist letter, UHC had hired preeminent defamation law firm Clare Locke — the one that got Dominion Voting Systems a nearly $800 million settlement in 2023 in its defamation case against Fox News — to handle its case against Potter.
Along with taking Potter to task, Clare Locke also sicced the Securities and Exchange Commission on billionaire investor Bill Ackman after he shared the surgeon's video on his own X account.
"I would not be surprised," Ackman wrote in since-deleted post, "to find that the company’s profitability is massively overstated due to its denial of medically necessary procedures and patient care."
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