UnitedHealth CEO's ‘Unnecessary Care’ Rant Sparks Fury

Zachary Folk / The Daily Beast

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Patients and family members shared stories about being denied coverage after the CEO of UnitedHealth Group’s said the company guarded against “unnecessary care.”

Backlash continued to build over the weekend against UnitedHealthcare following the shocking assassination of CEO Brian Thompson and a subsequent rant by parent company UnitedHealth’s CEO Andrew Witty, during which he defended the insurer’s practices as justified in order to prevent “unnecessary” care.

In response, a flood of social media users shared stories about how the insurer denied them coverage for what it deemed “unnecessary” care.

Witty last week sent staff a video message condemning the “vitriolic” commentary on social media following Thompson’s death. The message was only sent to employees of the multinational insurance giant, but a video recording was leaked and published by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein on Friday.

“Our role is a critical role, and we make sure that care is safe, appropriate, and is delivered when people need it,” Witty said. “And we guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe care or for unnecessary care to be delivered in a way which makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable.”

Witty told employees to “tune out” the criticism levied against the insurer, insisting it “does not reflect reality.”

But users on multiple platforms lashed out after the CEO’s comments were made public, with many sharing stories of how the company denied coverage for health care for them, their friends, or their family members. The Daily Beast could not confirm the details of any individual posts, but dozens of commenters have used various social media forums to express frustration with the company.

Users on Twitter shared stories about being denied coverage, with some claiming the insurer denied coverage for everything from a mammogram or a hospital stay for a senior woman with Alzheimer’s.

A new mother took to TikTok to share her own experience getting booted from her UnitedHealth plan after she gave birth—and now qualified for Medicaid.

One user, YouTuber Justin Whang, said that the company initially refused to pay for a particular medication for his mother before she tried another alternative. The alternative medicine made her “temporarily blind,” the YouTuber said.

And one user on Reddit posted a denial letter from UnitedHealthcare, which showed the company refusing to pay for a power wheelchair for a child with cerebral palsy.

UnitedHealth Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast about the video or the ongoing backlash.

It’s not the first time UnitedHealthcare has faced criticism for their policies surrounding denial of claims. A Senate subcommittee investigated United, as well as Humana and CVS Health, over the surge in denial rates for seniors on Medicare Advantage plans for “costly yet critical stays in post-acute care facilities” for common issues like falls and strokes.

According to a report published by the subcommittee in October, UnitedHealthcare’s denial rate for post-acute care grew from 10.9 percent in 2020 to 22.7 percent by 2022.

Doctors also weighed in from their standpoint, with some physician commenters on Reddit reflecting on their poor experiences with the company that convinced some to stop accepting UnitedHealthcare as a carrier.

Dr. Helen Ouyang, an emergency physician, penned an op-ed in The New York Times on Sunday. Ouyang condemned the responses taking glee in Thompson’s killing, but wrote about how her own patients struggled to navigate their precarious health-care coverage.

“That reaction, even in its objectionable vitriol, matters for how it lays bare Americans’ deep-seated anger toward health care,” Ouyang wrote. “Around the country, anecdotes were unleashed with furor.”