UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty has conceded that the U.S. healthcare system, which helped make him a multi-millionaire, is “not perfect.”
The stunning admission came via a brief column in The New York Times on Friday after he’d been the center of outrage for a rant in which he staunchly defended his company’s practices of not paying out for what it deems as “unnecessary” care.
“While the health system is not perfect,” he wrote Friday, “every corner of it is filled with people who try to do their best for those they serve.”
Witty later got more pointed in the criticisms of his own industry, writing that “no one” would set up the U.S. healthcare system to be like it currently is if they were starting from scratch.
“We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people’s frustrations with it,” Witty said. “No one would design a system like the one we have. And no one did. It’s a patchwork built over decades.”
The CEO said he’s dedicated to delivering “high-quality care” and “lower costs,” but acknowledged that UnitedHealthcare is “clearly” not there yet.
“Health care is both intensely personal and very complicated, and the reasons behind coverage decisions are not well understood,” Witty wrote. “We share some of the responsibility for that. Together with employers, governments and others who pay for care, we need to improve how we explain what insurance covers and how decisions are made.”
Witty added that the 50-year-old UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a father-of-two, was one of the good guys in the industry before he was gunned down on a Manhattan sidewalk last week.
His slaying has been deemed a “targeted attack,” with evidence mounting against its suspect, Luigi Mangione, who was arrested Monday after five days on the run.
Witty went after those who have celebrated Thompson’s slaying and other who’ve apparently threatened employees within his company in the murder’s aftermath.
“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,” he said. “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. 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.”
