The chief government officer of UnitedHealthcare’s mum or dad firm acknowledged in a New York Instances op-ed on Friday that the “health system does not work as well as it should” whereas condemning the “vitriol” directed on the trade within the wake of the homicide of CEO Brian Thompson.
Andrew Witty, the British former pharmaceutical government who has held the CEO place at UnitedHealth Group since February 2021, reacted on Friday to the deluge of social media posts celebrating the Dec. 4 killing of Thompson in Midtown Manhattan.
Regulation enforcement officers alleged that the killing was premeditated.
The alleged shooter, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, has been charged with homicide and different felonies.
He has pleaded not responsible.
Mangione, who’s jailed in Pennsylvania whereas combating extradition to New York, wrote a manifesto blasting the well being care system.
Authorities say he was not insured by UnitedHealthcare.
Within 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 customers.
“His dad spent more than 40 years unloading trucks at grain elevators. B.T., as we knew him, worked farm jobs as a kid and fished at a gravel pit with his brother. He never forgot where he came from, because it was the needs of people who live in places like Jewell, Iowa, that he considered first in finding ways to improve care,” Witty wrote.
Witty mentioned his firm shares some accountability for lack of expertise of protection selections.
“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,” Witty wrote. “Our mission is to help make it work better.”
He mentioned it was unfair that the corporate’s staff had been barraged with threats, whilst they grieved the lack of a colleague.
“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,” he wrote.
Witty wrote that Thompson was striving to make the “complicated” well being care system higher.
“While the health system is not perfect, every corner of it is filled with people who try to do their best for those they serve,” he wrote. “Brian was one of those people.”
He mentioned Thompson “pushed us to build dedicated teams to help the sickest people navigate the health system.”
“It’s why he fought for preventive health and quality health outcomes rather than simply adding ever more tests and procedures. He believed decisions about healthcare should start with the individual and championed plans in which consumers could see costs and coverage options upfront, so they could decide what’s best for themselves and their families,” Witty defined.
With Put up Wires
