Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, testifies in the course of the Senate Finance Committee listening to titled “Hacking America’s Well being Care: Assessing the Change Healthcare Cyber Assault and What’s Subsequent,” within the Dirksen Constructing in Washington, D.C., on Might 1, 2024.
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UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty on Friday mourned the loss of life of Brian Thompson, who led the corporate’s insurance coverage arm, and acknowledged that the U.S. health-care system is “flawed” and in want of reform.
“We all know the well being system doesn’t work in addition to it ought to, and we perceive individuals’s frustrations with it,” Witty wrote in a New York Occasions opinion piece. “Nobody would design a system just like the one we have now. And nobody did. It is a patchwork constructed over many years.”
UnitedHealth Group’s “mission is to assist make it work higher,” he stated.
“We’re prepared to accomplice with anybody, as we all the time have—well being care suppliers, employers, sufferers, pharmaceutical corporations, governments and others—to seek out methods to ship high-quality care and decrease prices,” Witty added.
The New York Occasions piece marks Witty’s first public feedback since final week’s fatal shooting of Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the biggest non-public insurer within the U.S. UnitedHealth Group is the nation’s greatest health-care conglomerate primarily based on income. Its almost $475 billion market cap has shrunk since Thompson’s loss of life on Dec. 4.
Luigi Mangione, 26, is accused of fatally shooting Thompson exterior the Hilton lodge in midtown Manhattan because the CEO headed to UnitedHealth Group’s investor day. Investigators have stated Mangione was a critic of the health-care business, a extensively held view amongst Americans.
The killing has unleashed a wave of pent-up resentment and anger towards the insurance coverage business, which has turn out to be a well-liked villain blamed for spiraling health-care prices and difficulties accessing care. From denied claims, rising premiums and surprising payments, to an total lack of transparency, sufferers have flooded social media with tales about their very own unfavorable experiences with insurance coverage.
Nonetheless, the killing comes after a difficult yr for the insurers, that are below strain to shore up earnings. This yr particularly, corporations grappled with greater medical prices as a consequence of seniors choosing surgical procedures they’d delayed in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Witty acknowledged UnitedHealth Group’s position within the health-care challenges within the U.S.
“Well being care is each intensely private and really difficult, and the explanations behind protection choices should not properly understood,” Witty stated, noting, “We share a number of the accountability for that.”
He didn’t present specifics round what precisely may very well be finished to reform the business. However Witty stated the corporate, along with employers, governments and different payers, wants to enhance how insurers clarify what is roofed and the way these choices are made.
He additionally famous that behind sure claims choices “lies a complete and frequently up to date physique of medical proof targeted on attaining one of the best well being outcomes and guaranteeing affected person security.”
Witty stated Thompson had finished his greatest to assist sufferers navigate the health-care system.
