UnitedHealth Group CEO admits system is flawed after Brian Thompsons murder

The chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare’s parent company acknowledged in a New York Times op-ed on Friday that the “health system does not work as well as it should” while condemning the “vitriol” directed at the industry in the wake of the murder of CEO Brian Thompson.Andrew Witty, the British former pharmaceutical executive who has held the CEO position 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.Law enforcement officials alleged that the killing was premeditated.

The alleged shooter, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, has been charged with murder and other felonies.He has pleaded not guilty.Mangione, who is jailed in Pennsylvania while fighting extradition to New York, wrote a manifesto blasting the health care system.

Authorities say he was not insured by UnitedHealthcare.In the op-ed titled “The Health Care System Is Flawed.Let’s Fix It.,” Witty said he understood people’s frustration but described Thompson as part of the solution.Thompson never forgot growing up in his family’s farmhouse in Iowa and focused on improving the experiences of consumers.“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 said his company shares some responsibility for lack of understanding of coverage decisions.“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 said it was unfair that the company’s workers had b...