Summary
UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty criticized public outrage over the health insurance industry following the assassination of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson.
In a leaked video to staff, Witty dismissed criticism as “misinformation” and urged employees not to engage with media.
Thompson’s murder outside a Manhattan hotel has intensified scrutiny of the industry’s practices, with bullet casings found at the scene bearing phrases linked to insurance claim denial tactics.
The killing has sparked debate on UnitedHealthcare’s history of denying claims, while the shooter remains at large.
Witty faces unrelated DOJ insider trading allegations.
As someone who worked with a lot of Americans, I came to believe that some of the sociopathic work culture was due, in part at least, to the tying of medical coverage to work itself.
I saw so many peers at the stage of burnout, having to jump from one job to another without so much as a break, because their healthcare and their family’s healthcare depended on it.
It struck me that in many cases many Americans were, at least in some sense, enslaved.
If I stop working and I break my leg playing out in the snow - there’s no risk to my financial future and so I can, if needed, rest (either to recover from said injury or to recover from the mental anguish of burnout or other.)
Many of my peers did not have that luxury.
I think that it goes a lot deeper than that. In the 90s I worked on a joint base shared with Americans and made a lot of American friends. They were shocked and sarcastic about the benefits that we had (Australians) that they did not have. Things such as long service leave (12 weeks paid leave after 10 years service) and even our four weeks annual leave. The shocked but I can understand, but the sarcasm I don’t get? It was as if our refusal to expend ourselves to the grind diminished us as a culture ?
That was 35 years ago, and our conditions have degraded accordingly. But I remember the American sentiment of the times well.
I’ve heard that sarcasm all my life, it’s intertwined in our culture, that if you’re not working above and beyond then you’re lazy and deserve to be poor. That’s how I found myself in my 20s working 84 hour weeks as the norm, and while doing better than average, I’d no longer recommend the lifestyle.
It’s definitely true, and it’s by design.