UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty addresses backlash against insurer
"We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people's frustrations with it," Witty says.
Photo: Courtesy UnitedHealth Group
In an op-ed published in The New York Times on Friday, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty addressed the backlash against the insurer following the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
"We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people's frustrations with it. No one would design a system like the one we have. And no one did. It's a patchwork built over decades. Our mission is to help make it work better," Witty wrote under the headline "The Health Care System Is Flawed. Let's Fix It."
Witty said UnitedHealth was willing to partner with healthcare providers, employers, patients, pharmaceutical companies, governments and others, to find ways to deliver high-quality care and lower costs.
"As Brian Thompson's family, friends and colleagues mourn his killing, we are bearing a grief and sadness we will carry for the rest of our lives. Grief for the family he leaves behind. And grief for a brilliant, kind man who was working to make healthcare better for everyone," Witty said. "We greatly appreciate the enormous outpouring of support for Brian, who ran our health insurance business, UnitedHealthcare, as well as for our wider company, which I lead. Yet we also are struggling to make sense of this unconscionable act and the vitriol that has been directed at our colleagues who have been barraged by threats."
Witty said no employees -- be they the people who answer customer calls or nurses who visit patients in their homes -- should have to fear for their and their loved ones' safety.
After Thompson, 50, was fatally shot on his way to a UnitedHealth Investor Day Conference in Midtown Manhattan on December 4, the company received both condolences and statements of rage on social media over claim denials by the nation's largest health insurer.
Luigi Mangione, 26, has been charged with the second-degree murder of Thompson.
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org
