UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson had warned his fellow executives at the insurance company about the negative public image months before he was shot.
Thompson, 50, tried to focus on the needs of each individual patient during his time as CEO of the massive insurance company, colleagues told the Washington Post.
He also argued in internal discussions with fellow executives earlier this year that the average American did not understand UnitedHealthcare’s role in the nation’s health care system — and urged executives to focus on the steps the company was taking to improve its own eliminate costs for life-saving medications.
“He understood that the public was frustrated by what they saw in the company’s actions,” an unidentified insider told WaPo.
‘He was actively formulating a vision that helped to better inform people and help them understand what the company does.’
The company and its parent company, UnitedHealth Group, received bad publicity at the time due to a Justice Department investigation alleging that Thompson engaged in insider trading.
The organization also faced outrage among its members over claims that it made billions of dollars by denying health care to the sick and elderly.
Police now say 26-year-old Luigi Mangione opened fire on Thompson while walking outside a downtown Manhattan hotel on December 4.
United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, had warned his fellow executives at the insurance company about the negative public image months before he was shot.
New York City police say outrage over the health insurer’s history of denying claims prompted 26-year-old Luigi Mangione to open fire on the CEO on December 4.
The alleged killer was caught eating at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where staff members and customers recognized Mangione as the suspect captured on surveillance footage.
He was subsequently taken into state custody on gun charges, with police saying he was carrying a 3D printed handgun and a black silencer loaded with one Glock magazine containing six 9mm all-metal bullets.
New York police officers were later able to match that ammunition to that of Thompson’s death – when Mangione allegedly labeled “depose,” “deny” and “dedefen.”
Mangione also reportedly had a manifesto outlining his grievances against UnitedHealthcare.
‘To spare you a lengthy investigation, I clearly state that I have not collaborated with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some basic social engineering, basic CAD, [and] much patience’, he is said to have written in the manifesto, according to the Daily Beast.
He went on to say he had “respect” for federal investigators and apologized for causing any “trauma” but appeared to defend his alleged actions.
“To be honest, these parasites already expected it,” the manifesto wrote.
The report also claimed that the United States had the “most expensive health care system in the world,” but dismissed the system as giving America only 42nd in life expectancy.
Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania, where he was reportedly found with a manifesto outlining his grievances against UnitedHealthcare.
New York City police now say they have “no indications” that Mangione was ever a customer of the insurance company.
But Chef Joseph Kelly listed on NBC New York that the manifesto “states that it is the fifth largest company in America, which would make it the largest health care organization in America.
“So that might be why he targeted the company,” Kelly suggested.
But UnitedHealth Group has fought back against the hate in the wake of Thompson’s death.
A company spokesperson told the Washington Post that its insurance division pays about 90 percent of medical claims when they are filed, and of the rest, only 0.5 percent are “for medical or clinical reasons.”
Company allies also say the complexity of the U.S. health care system is to blame — arguing that many of the price increases consumers blame on insurance companies can be traced to hospitals and doctors raising their own prices, which are then passed on. to patients.
“Together with employers, governments and others who pay for health care, we must improve the way we explain what insurance covers and how decisions are made,” UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times Friday.
‘Behind every decision lies a comprehensive and continuously updated body of clinical evidence aimed at achieving the best health outcomes and ensuring patient safety.’
UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty has repeatedly tried to stem the tide of hatred toward Brian Thompson after his death
He had previously made similar comments to employees following Thompson’s death, saying UnitedHealthcare would continue to put “patients, consumers and members” first in the company’s “journey to help all who need it within the health care’.
Witty had argued in a video that the “mission of the insurance company… is really to make sure that we help improve the system by helping individuals’ experiences get better and better.”
He said its “role is a critical one” in ensuring that care “is safe, appropriate and provided when people need it.”
“We guard against the pressure that exists to provide unsafe care or to provide unnecessary care in a way that makes the entire system too complex and ultimately unsustainable,” Witty argued.
“So we’ll continue to make that case,” Witty said. “We will continue the work we are doing.”
In a follow-up memo, Witty reiterated that the company would stay the course despite Thompson’s shooting and public support for Mangione.
“We’re going to make sure medications are filled, infusions are given, and people can stay on top of their therapies for the rarest disease states.
“And we will be there when people leave the hospital, if only to hold their hand when they get back on their feet.”
The insurance company is now facing even more scrutiny over previously undisclosed internal documents showing that it planned to limit coverage for the “gold standard” of therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder.
Yet the insurance company is once again in trouble over previously unreleased internal documents showing that UnitedHealth Group planned to limit coverage for the “gold standard” of therapy for children with autism.
Costs to the company have skyrocketed in recent years, in addition to diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders, due to increased awareness and improved screening.
The cost-saving initiative targets children enrolled through the company’s state-contracted Medicaid plans, which serve the nation’s poorest people, including 10,000 children with autism.
The specific therapy that internal documents focus on is applied behavior analysis, which the company itself admits is the “evidence-based gold standard treatment for people with medically necessary needs.”
Internal documents show that Optum, which manages mental health services for United, aims to “prevent new providers from joining the network” and “terminate” existing ones, even as it acknowledges there is a national shortage of covered counselors .
The company also conducts “rigorous” clinical assessments to determine the medical necessity of each patient’s therapy, which may lead to a denial of coverage.