Critics are torching a New York Times op-ed by the CEO of UnitedHealthcare's parent company, arguing that the $23.5 million-salaried executive's message overwhelmingly ignored the failures actively perpetuated by his company in the American healthcare system. UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty condemned the American public's gleeful response to the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was assassinated by a masked gunman last week on the streets of New York City just hours before an investor meeting. In roughly 600 words, he also attempted to deflect his insurance network's responsibility in the growing inequity in America's health care system, vaguely pointing to a "patchwork" of failures decades in the making while swearing that his corporate network—which reported $22 billion in profits in 2023 alone, nearly three times the figure reported by CVS, the second-most-profitable health insurance company that year—was consistently fighting to "deliver high-quality care and lower costs." But readers weren't buying it.
In early 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson had an urgent warning for his colleagues: The company has a public relations problem. Average Americans didn't understand the massive insurance company's role in the nation's health system, Thompson argued in internal discussions and with fellow executives, including steps it had taken to eliminate out-of-pocket costs for lifesaving drugs, colleagues said. Instead, UnitedHealthcare and its parent, UnitedHealth Group, faced investigations, a congressional probe and simmering consumer anger over charges it was making billions by denying healthcare to the ill and the elderly.
From nearly the moment of Steward's founding in 2010, Massachusetts officials failed to discipline the Boston-born hospital chain for regulatory violations, check its aggressive expansion plans and relentless cost-cutting, or respond forcefully to dire warnings as it spiraled toward financial collapse, the Spotlight Team has found. Critical reports were softened, alarming financials went unheeded, and broken promises by Steward were unpunished. These failures spanned multiple administrations and contributed to a crisis that has harmed communities and cost lives.