The chief govt of UnitedHealthcare’s dad or mum firm acknowledged in a New York Times op-ed on Friday that the “well being system doesn’t work in addition to it ought to” whereas condemning the “vitriol” directed on the business within the wake of the homicide of CEO Brian Thompson.
UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty reacted on Friday to the deluge of social media posts celebrating the Dec. 4 killing of Thompson in Midtown Manhattan.
The alleged shooter, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, who has pleaded not responsible to homicide and different felonies, wrote a manifesto blasting the well being care system, though authorities say he was not insured by UnitedHealthcare.
In the op-ed titled “The Health Care System Is Flawed. Let’s Fix It.,” Witty mentioned he understood folks’s frustration however described Thompson as a part of the answer.
Thompson by no means forgot rising up in his household’s farmhouse in Iowa and centered on bettering the experiences of shoppers.
“His dad spent greater than 40 years unloading vans at grain elevators. B.T., as we knew him, labored farm jobs as a child and fished at a gravel pit along with his brother,” Witty wrote. “He by no means forgot the place he got here from, as a result of it was the wants of people that reside in locations like Jewell, Iowa, that he thought of first to find methods to enhance care.”
Witty mentioned his firm shares some accountability for lack of information of protection selections.
“We know the well being system doesn’t work in addition to it ought to, and we perceive folks’s frustrations with it. No one would design a system just like the one now we have. And nobody did. It’s a patchwork constructed over many years,” Witty wrote. “Our mission is to assist make it work higher.”
He mentioned it was unfair that the corporate’s staff had been barraged with threats, whilst they grieved the lack of a colleague.
“No workers — be they the individuals who reply buyer calls or nurses who go to sufferers of their properties — ought to need to worry for his or her and their family members’ security,” he wrote.
Witty wrote that Thompson was striving to make the “difficult” well being care system higher.
“While the well being system just isn’t good, each nook of it’s stuffed with individuals who attempt to do their greatest for these they serve,” he wrote. “Brian was a kind of folks.”
He mentioned Thompson “pushed us to construct devoted groups to assist the sickest folks navigate the well being system.”
“It’s why he fought for preventive well being and high quality well being outcomes slightly than merely including ever extra exams and procedures. He believed selections about healthcare ought to begin with the person and championed plans by which shoppers may see prices and protection choices upfront, so they may determine what’s greatest for themselves and their households,” Witty defined.
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