The assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group’s health-insurance unit has surprisingly (or not) given rise to public anger about the for-profit health-insurance industry. UnitedHealth needs to respond to that outcry, but so far its efforts have been disappointing. Nowhere more so than in a recent New York Times op-ed.

The astonishing Dec. 4 murder in New York City of Brian Thompson, apparently by a shooter upset at how private health insurance works, has provided an opportunity for many people — while not necessarily condoning the violence — to vent their anger at the industry and at UHG in particular. The anger is over high costs, rampant denial of coverage and bureaucratic procedures for preauthorizations. In a sense, it’s brought together usually warring sectors of a deeply divided society, including liberals and conservatives.

So the guest essay by UHG CEO Andrew Witty, posted on the Times’s website Dec. 13, is a real crisis communications response to a real crisis. To say it misses the mark is an understatement. It has been widely excoriated, as have most of UHG’s crisis communications in response to the public outrage. UHG is not reading the room.

No Proposals

Witty uses the essay to both laud Thompson, which is understandable, and to express his company’s awareness that the U.S. health-care system has problems. The effort falls short of what’s needed. A major flaw is that Witty makes no proposals for change. Crisis communicators beware: This sort of thing won’t cut it.

“We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people’s frustrations with it,” Witty writes, blandly. “We understand and share the desire to build a health care system that works better for everyone. That is the purpose of our organization.”

The problem is that few people who’ve dealt with for-profit health insurers will believe that. They believe UHG sees its mission as making the system better for its shareholders (its 2023 profit: $23 billion). It’s as if the essay’s theme is “You can fool all the people all the time.”

The op-ed contains further problematic statements such as “the reasons behind coverage decisions are not well understood” and “we need to improve how we explain what insurance covers and how decisions are made.” But UHG doesn’t face an “explain” problem; it faces an “action” problem.

‘Says Nothing’

What’s needed is a deeper acknowledgement of the anger people feel toward companies like Witty’s, an anger that was brought into focus, sadly, by Thompson’s murder. This is shown in the brutal, nearly 2,500 reader comments to the op-ed. Three examples: “To say this doesn’t match the moment is putting it mildly.” “I think Mr. CEO is insulting the intelligence of the readers of this attempt to make this story go away.” “I have read this twice, and in essence it says nothing. What is he proposing to change or improve?”

The lackluster op-ed performance is especially disappointing because Witty had a dress rehearsal: As reported by Katherine Fung and Joshua Rhett Miller in Newsweek, two days before the opinion piece was posted Witty sent out a similar e-mail to employees, which was leaked and then also widely criticized.

“Staff are frustrated with how tone deaf the response has been,” independent journalist Ken Klipperstein reported on X, without providing a source. The company apparently didn’t take that criticism to heart when drafting the guest essay in the Times.

Photo Credit: JHVEPhoto/Shutterstock

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