UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty mourned the killing of chief executive Brian Thompson and said he understood public frustration with the “flawed” US health care system.
“Nobody would design a system like ours. And nobody did. It's a patchwork built over decades,” Witty said. in a New York Times opinion piece on Fridayhis first public comments since Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth's health insurance unit, was shot dead last week.
The killing has ignited anger from Americans who struggle to access and pay for medical care and has drawn new attention to deepening resentment about health coverage.
Witty said he and his colleagues were “struggling to make sense of this senseless act and the vitriol directed at our threatened colleagues.” “
Americans pay more for health care than residents of any other country, and data show that spending on insurance premiums, out-of-pocket costs, medications and hospital services have all gone up over the past five years. This can lead to unexpected costs for care that people thought was covered by their health plan.
“Health care is both very personal and very complicated, and the reasons for coverage decisions are not well understood,” Witty said.
“We share some of the responsibility for that,” Witty said, adding that his company was willing to work with governments, health care providers and pharmaceutical companies to find ways to provide “high-quality care delivery and lower costs.”
Insurers say they are working to negotiate higher fees from doctors and hospitals, as well as expensive prescription drugs and medical devices.
The suspect who killed the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Luigi Mangione has been getting some amazing online praise lately. David Gilbert, a reporter at Wired, talks about what he has seen online and why some may be glorifying Mangione.
'BT' has never forgotten its humble roots, the CEO says
After a five-day investigation, Luigi Mangione was charged with murder on December 9 for killing Thompson in a brazen shooting outside a Manhattan hotel before a business conference.
Mangione suffered from chronic back pain that affected his daily life, according to friends and social media posts, though his specific treatment and coverage history was unclear.
“It's hard to underestimate the anger and frustration that people have with their insurance companies,” said David Shapiro, a former FBI agent and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. .
Shapiro said he's never seen anything like Mangione's response, but added, “it's not that long because of the sentiment in the country and how easy it is to promote this anonymously on the Internet.” “
Several commentators on social media noted Mangione's privileged background as a member of a prominent family in Baltimore, Md., in contrast to Thompson's working-class upbringing in rural Iowa, and called the killing a an example of how anti-capitalist rhetoric can incite violence. .
Witty did not name the shooting suspect, but praised Thompson's humility, both in a letter to employees Wednesday, and in his submission to the Times.
“Dad spent over 40 years loading trucks at grain elevators,” Witty wrote. “BT, as we knew him, worked on farms as a child and fished at a gravel pit with his brother. first consideration in finding ways to improve care.”
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