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.
