In his first public comments since one of his executives was shot to death, UnitedHealth Group chief … [+]
In his first public comments since one of his executives was shot to death, UnitedHealth Group chief executive Andrew Witty Thursday said the U.S. healthcare system “needs to function better” and that his company’s mission was to “help people live healthier lives.”
On a day when UnitedHealth reported $14 billion in 2024 net income, Witty spoke of the need for the need for the healthcare system to be “less confusing, less complex and less costly.”
UnitedHealth and Witty have been dealing with fallout since the December 4 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, which unleashed a torrent of scrutiny on health insurer denials of medical care and certain other business practices from social media trolls and industry critics including some in Congress who’d like to see reforms.
The company along with most other rival health insurers, has remained dark with few, if any, press releases while companies including UnitedHealth have stripped executive pictures, biographies and other information from websites.
But Witty, who was Thompson’s boss, told analysts and investors on the company’s earnings call Thursday morning “the task in front of us” including health care providers, insurers, employers, drug companies, and policymakers “is to continue improving quality and health outcomes for individuals and families while lowering costs for everyone.”
“We need to build on the unique foundational strengths of health care in America and address the areas we can make work better,” Witty said.
“The mission of this company — why we exist – is to improve this system for everybody and help people live healthier lives,” he added. “That means getting more people into high-quality, value-based care and keeping them healthy in the first place so fewer Americans find themselves with a chronic and in many cases – preventable disease. It means continuing to invest in programs like Medicare Advantage which, by providing coordinated care to seniors, is proven to deliver better health outcomes at lower costs to consumers and taxpayers compared to fee for service Medicare.”
Thompson was among several executives who ran UnitedHealth Group businesses with the title of CEO. UnitedHealth includes the health insurance company UnitedHealthcare that included Thompson as well as Optum and its many businesses including OptumRx, one of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit managers.
“You knew how much he meant to all of us and how devoted he was to helping make the health system work better for all the people we are privileged to serve,” Witty said of Thompson. “He would dive in with passion and caring to find solutions to improve experiences whether for an individual consumer, employer or public agency. Right now, there are 400,000 nurses, doctors, case workers, customer service specialists, pharmacists, technologists and so many others in this organization who share that commitment and are determined to advance that work.”
In his comments, Witty also took aim at the pharmaceutical industry given the rising price of prescription drugs and his company’s role in trying to keep a lid on costs, particularly as more people take expensive drugs like the anti-obesity GLP-1 prescription injections that can cost more than $2,000 a month without coverage.
“Pharmacy benefit managers play a vital role in holding those prices down – which is why drug companies and their allies have spent the past several years attacking them,” said Witty, who ran the big drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline for nearly a decade before joining UnitedHealth Group’s management team to run Optum before being elevated to CEO of UnitedHealth. “OptumRx alone delivers many tens of billions of dollars in savings annually versus the pricing set by manufacturers – including on GLP-1s. That sharply reduces the gap versus other countries, but even then, prices in the U.S. are still multiples of what the rest of the world pays for the same drugs.”
Witty said United’s PBM OptumRx is making changes to benefit its employer and government clients.
“Last year, our PBM passed through more than 98% of the rebate discounts we negotiate with drug companies to clients. While we offer customers 100% pass-through options, a small number have historically elected other models,” Witty added. “We are committed to fully phasing out those remaining arrangements so that 100% of rebates will go to customers by 2028 at the latest.”
“We will continue to encourage all of our clients to fully pass these savings directly to patients at the point of sale, as we already do for all the people we serve in our fully insured employer offerings,” Witty said. “This will help make more transparent who is responsible for drug prices in this country: the drug companies themselves.”
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