UnitedHealth Group C.E.O.: The Health Care System Is Flawed. Let’s Fix It., New York Times, Dec. 13, 2024, by Andrew Witty, C.E.O. UnitedHealth Group, parent company of UnitedHealthcare
As Brian Thompson’s family, friends and colleagues mourn his killing, we are bearing a grief and sadness we will carry for the rest of our lives. We greatly appreciate the enormous outpouring of support for Brian, who ran our health insurance business, UnitedHealthcare, as well as for our wider company, which I lead. Yet we also are struggling to make sense of this unconscionable act and the vitriol that has been directed at our colleagues who have been barraged by threats.
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. Our mission is to help make it work better. We are willing to partner with anyone, as we always have — health care providers, employers, patients, pharmaceutical companies, governments and others — to find ways to deliver high-quality care and lower costs.
Clearly, we are not there yet. We understand and share the desire to build a health care system that works better for everyone. That is the purpose of our organization.
Brian was never content with the status quo. That’s why he 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 health care 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.
The ideas he advocated were aimed at making health care more affordable, more transparent, more intuitive, more compassionate — and more human.
That’s Brian’s legacy, one that we will carry forward by continuing our work to make the health system work better for everyone.
Optum: The $101 Billion Division of United Health Group Explained, YouTube video (3 min), AHealthcareZ – Healthcare Finance Explained, Nov. 30, 2020, with Dr. Eric Bricker
Optum is almost half of UnitedHealth Group’s business. The other half is UnitedHealthcare, which is the insurance company. Not only is Optum about half of their revenues, it’s about half of their earnings.
What does Optum own? It’s kind of made up of a whole bunch of things (Advisory Board Co., Optum Analytics, Optum Bank, OptumRx – a PBM, etc.)
The point of this talk is that Optum is supposed to be advocating for companies and their employees while, at the same time, Optum is getting paid by hospitals to increase their revenue. I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but it’s a big deal, and I just want to bring that to your attention.
United Health Group’s 5 Highest Earning Executives in 2023, Becker’s Payer Issues, April 22, 2024, by Rylee Wilson
UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty was paid $23.5 million in total compensation in 2023. Mr. Witty’s total compensation increased $2.6 million from 2022, according to documents the company filed with the SEC April 22.
Comment:
By Don McCanne, M.D.
We’ve been saturated and saddened by comments about the tragic killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, but perhaps we are even more astounded by the intensity of the public’s response against the insurance company that Brian Thompson represented. So it seems like it would help us understand the situation better by reading the response of Andrew Witty, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group.
In an attempt to assuage the sorrow and anger of the public at large, Witty explains that no one would design a health care system like the one we have now, but that their mission is “to help make it work better.“ Andrew Witty says that they will carry forward Brian Thompson’s legacy of “making health care more affordable, more transparent, more intuitive, more compassionate — and more human.”
But let’s look at their business model. Half of the company is about health insurance, and we all know about the dysfunctional changes that have taken place in the health insurance we have ended up with — massive profits, narrow & flawed provider networks, prohibitive deductibles and cost-sharing, and rising prior authorization denials. Ours is the most expensive health care system, yet it significantly underperforms compared to other wealthy nations. Far too many are left underinsured or even uninsured. This is a legacy of making health care more affordable, more compassionate, and more human? Don’t think so.
It hardly seems that their mission is, as they claim, about improving health care for all. About half of their business model is in Optum. Optum isn’t about the rendering of health care; it’s about the business of health care. It’s about taking our health care dollars and moving them into their business model. It’s about money! It’s about profits!
Andrew Witty wants us to be impressed by the humane nature of their model, even if it has not performed as well as we think it should. In fact, their hidden mission of wealth creation for their executives and investors might be better exemplified by his compensation increase of $2.6 million in the latest year for which we have a breakdown of his $23.5 million compensation. That’s quite a reward for someone who is supervising the degradation of our health care financing system.
In my opinion, Mr. Witty’s attempt to calm us down has failed. More than ever, for the health of our nation, we see that it is imperative that we eliminate this industry and replace it with a single payer system, a carefully improved version of Medicare that serves all of us while making it equitable, comprehensive, accessible, and affordable.
But, please, no tragedies. Let’s make the system function effectively for everyone. We can do this together.
(Although Mr. Witty might be expected to attend the health care negotiations, he should surely understand when we politely ask him to take a seat in the back row.)
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