The leader of UnitedHealth Group acknowledged that the patchwork U.S. health care system “doesn’t work as well as it should” but said Friday that the insurance executive shot on a Manhattan sidewalk cared about customers and was working to make it better.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who died last week, was described as kind and brilliant by UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty in a guest essay published in The New York Times.
The killings are seen as a violent expression of widespread anger in the insurance industry. Witty said people at the company were struggling to make sense of the killings, as well as the vitriol and threats directed at co-workers.
Thompson, the man accused of killing Luigi Mangione, found a three-page letter pointing to UnitedHealthcare’s high cost of health care in America and its profits and size, police said.
A division of UnitedHealth Group, America’s largest health insurance company. Mangione is currently being held in Pennsylvania and intends to plead not guilty to murder charges in New York, his attorney said.
Witty said he understood people’s frustration but described Thompson as part of the solution.
Thompson never forgot growing up on his family’s farmhouse in Iowa and focused on improving the consumer experience.
“His father spent more than 40 years unloading trucks on grain elevators. BT, as we knew him, farmed and fished with his brother on a gravel pit as a child. He never forgot where he came from, because it was in places like Jewell, Iowa. “There was a need for people to stay, which made him think first about finding ways to improve care,” Witty wrote.
Witty said his company shares some responsibility for the lack of understanding of coverage decisions.
“We know the health system isn’t working well, and we understand the public’s frustration with it. No one designs 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 better.” According to police, he was waiting outside a hotel where the health insurance company was holding its investor conference on the morning of December 4 when the shooting happened. He approached Thompson from behind and shot him before fleeing on his bicycle through Central Park.
Mangione was arrested Monday after being spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 370 kilometers west of New York City. He is fighting extradition to New York so he can face manslaughter charges in Thompson’s murder.
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