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In a public response to the outpouring of rage in opposition to medical health insurance firms following the homicide of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare’s guardian firm admited America’s well being care system “is flawed” as he mourned the lack of a “sensible, type man.”

In an op-ed titled “The well being care system is flawed. Let’s repair it,” printed within the New York Instances on Friday, Andrew Witty, chief govt officer of UnitedHealth Group, wrote that he “understands folks’s frustrations.”

The surprising case has prompted a wave of help for the suspect, Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with Thompson’s homicide and is combating extradition to New York, as People vent their frustrations with the state of well being care.

“We all know the well being system doesn’t work in addition to it ought to, and we perceive folks’s frustrations with it,” Witty mentioned. “Nobody would design a system just like the one now we have.”

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Witty insisted that the corporate’s “mission” is to assist make well being protection higher and convey prices down. “We’re keen to associate with anybody, as we at all times have — well being care suppliers, employers, sufferers, pharmaceutical firms, governments and others — to seek out methods to ship high-quality care and decrease prices,” he mentioned.

Nonetheless, within the op-ed he acknowledges: “Clearly, we’re not there but.”

“Along with employers, governments and others who pay for care, we have to enhance how we clarify what insurance coverage covers and the way choices are made,” he wrote. “Behind every determination lies a complete and frequently up to date physique of scientific proof centered on attaining one of the best well being outcomes and guaranteeing affected person security.”

Witty additionally paid tribute to Thompson and his Iowa roots, including that the late CEO wished to make well being care “higher for everybody.”

“As Brian Thompson’s household, buddies and colleagues mourn his killing, we’re bearing a grief and disappointment we are going to carry for the remainder of our lives,” Witty mentioned. “Grief for the household he leaves behind. And grief for an excellent, type man who was working to make well being care higher for everybody.”

He continued: “Brian was by no means content material with the established order. That’s why he pushed us to construct devoted groups to assist the sickest folks navigate the well being system.”

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The well being care boss additionally decried the “threats” staff on the firm have confronted since Thompson’s surprising execution on a New York Metropolis road.

“No staff — be they the individuals who reply buyer calls or nurses who go to sufferers of their houses — ought to must worry for his or her and their family members’ security,” he mentioned.

In the meantime, the NYPD’s Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny has revealed that there’s “no indication” that the 26-year-old suspect, who’s believed to have undergone main again surgical procedure final yr, was ever a consumer of UnitedHealthcare. Mangione left behind a three-page notice that expressed “an sick will in direction of company America,” investigators have mentioned.

“We’ve got no indication that he ever was a consumer of UnitedHealthcare, however he does make point out that it’s the fifth largest company in America, which might make it the biggest healthcare group in America,” Kenny mentioned.

An NYPD evaluation obtained by CNN states that Mangione “appeared to view the focused killing of the corporate’s highest-ranking consultant as a symbolic takedown and a direct problem to its alleged corruption and ‘energy video games.’”