Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, testifies through 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 Could 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 Instances opinion piece. “Nobody would design a system just like the one we now have. 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 keen to companion with anybody, as we at all times have—well being care suppliers, employers, sufferers, pharmaceutical firms, governments and others—to seek out methods to ship high-quality care and decrease prices,” Witty added.
The New York Instances piece marks Witty’s first public feedback since final week’s fatal shooting of Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the most important non-public insurer within the U.S. UnitedHealth Group is the nation’s largest health-care conglomerate based mostly 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 outdoors 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 trade, a extensively held view amongst Americans.
The killing has unleashed a wave of pent-up resentment and anger towards the insurance coverage trade, which has turn into a well-liked villain blamed for spiraling health-care prices and difficulties accessing care. From denied claims, rising premiums and sudden payments, to an general lack of transparency, sufferers have flooded social media with tales about their very own detrimental experiences with insurance coverage.
Nonetheless, the killing comes after a difficult 12 months for the insurers, that are below strain to shore up income. This 12 months specifically, firms grappled with larger medical prices resulting from seniors choosing surgical procedures they’d delayed through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Witty acknowledged UnitedHealth Group’s function 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 are usually not properly understood,” Witty stated, noting, “We share a few of the duty for that.”
He didn’t present specifics round what precisely could possibly be executed to reform the trade. 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 making certain affected person security.”
Witty stated Thompson had executed his finest to assist sufferers navigate the health-care system.
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