In the midst of a maelstrom of emotion surrounding the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, comparisons are now being made between real-life events and televised procedurals, such as Law & Order. In fact, 22 years ago, Law & Order produced an episode entitled, “Undercovered,” which writer Wendy Battles finds eerily similar to the Dec. 4 murder. Battles said that she texted co-writer Noah Baylin “our episode is happening in real life,” telling Vanity Fair, “We just both recognized right away that there were parallels.”
In the episode (currently available only on DVD), a distraught father Tony Garcia (Juan Carlos Hernández) is pushed to murder insurance company executive Warren Slater (Joseph Culliton) when Slater votes to deny his nine-year-old daughter Courtney (Courtnie Beceiro) lifesaving treatment for her leukemia because he considers the $2,500 per month to be too expensive. The case — prosecuted by assistant district attorney Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) — ends in a hung jury as a result of Garcia’s emotional testimony. And district attorney Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest) declares a mistrial, believing that no jury could reach unanimity, thus freeing Garcia.
On Dec. 9, Luigi Mangione was taken into custody and charged with shooting the UnitedHealthcare CEO, allegedly motivated by the company’s abuses enacted against the American public in the name of profit, according to a manifesto found on Mangione. UnitedHealthcare rejects 33% of medical claims — the highest rate of rejection out of all major U.S.-based insurers. The aftermath has spurred cries against insurance companies as the public expresses feelings of abandonment, distaste, grief, outrage, and even celebration and levity. Such feelings are not new, according to Battles, as she sought to emulate them in her episode over two decades ago.
The Anger That People Feel About Health Insurance Was “Alive & Kicking Even Back Then”
Battles, who has also been a producer on CSI: NY, The River, and Crossing Lines, further explaining that Law & Order‘s ability to represent attitudes toward insurance companies and the larger capitalist-corporate system is a result of the overlying purpose of television.
“These shows are not just about solving a crime or entertaining people. It’s about exploring human nature, motives, and trying to provoke discussion and feelings in the viewers.
The outrage and the anger that people were feeling about health insurance in this country was around, alive and kicking even back then, 22 years ago. You can see on social media the outrage, [and] people laughing and clapping. It’s just unbelievable. So it’s obviously a very, very polarizing issue that I would really hope some day that we can deal with. I mean, no other industrialized country has this problem. I lived and worked in Denmark for four years; I saw what socialized medicine can do, and none of my friends there have ever worried about a medical condition. So I know it can be done another way, a better way.”
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Inspiration for “Undercovered” derived from Battles’s own lived experience. As a teenager, her father was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and then denied insurance. Battles said he was lucky that he was able to afford his necessary treatments but recognized that tens of millions of people would not be able to pay out-of-pocket. Much like in the show, she said that the jury may harbor sympathies for Mangione as a result of their proximity to sick loved ones.
“​​Jurors could feel, ‘Gee, my aunt died of lack of care.’ My father was underinsured. I think it resonates with everyone because it’s a subject matter that affects all of us. Everyone knows someone who’s sick, who had problems with their insurance, and it seems that more and more claims are being denied. And I think they’ve destroyed the medical profession… I don’t see any world where [the assailant] will be getting off like the man did in our episode.”
As for a future episode of Law & Order that addresses the themes that have resurfaced here, Battles said that the next rendition would need to encapsulate the increasingly corporatized health care system, AI, its lobbyists, and how “people feel completely helpless against that machine.”
Law and Order: SVU
- Release Date
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September 20, 1999
