A Wave of Fury: The Anger Under the Numbers

When experience and numbers collide

By David Jarrard 3-minute read

Are you shocked at the rage?

A “torrent of hate” for our healthcare industry has engulfed social media in the wake of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

It’s not dissatisfaction. Not disappointment.

It’s unleashed fury.

And it reveals seething social and political power directed at our industry – power that we ignore or dismiss at great risk.

The daylight shooting rent a fissure in the relatively calm surface of the long simmering but safely tut-tutting academic discussions about the experience of delivering, receiving and paying for healthcare in the US. A boiling undercurrent of anger has erupted through the tear.

“The degree of vitriol in the wake of the killing has taken even industry veterans by surprise,” said Modern Healthcare.

Surprise might be justified if you take a selective view of consumer sentiment that finds, for example, 65% of people rate their insurance coverage as excellent or good. Or that dominant market share in profitable service lines means people are well and truly satisfied.

But you know that’s not the whole story of healthcare today.

Even the New York Times, after presenting seemingly contradictory numbers that suggest most people are satisfied with their healthcare but not healthcare in general, quotes a Gallup senior editor who says, “We can’t answer ‘why’ from our data.” The numbers are invaluable. Necessary. And not the whole story.

You know the stories told by physicians and nurses as they struggle within our tortuously byzantine system to care for their patients. We won’t recount the heart-rending tales here. Maybe you have stories of your own.

Our firm’s national consumer surveys over the last few years have been flashing warning lights, too:

• Most adults say that hospitals (68%) and insurance companies (80%) put profits over patients.
• Almost half of people say they or someone in their home have delayed getting care due to cost.
• About six in 10 say that U.S. healthcare isn’t equitable for all, or a good value.
• Only about a third say hospitals provide enough community benefit.

If you’re paying attention (and we know you are), the surprise to Thompson’s horrific murder may not be the responses of fist-curling frustration, but the staggering intensity and breadth of the public’s voice.

It’s the kind of “pox on all your houses” political force that will embrace chaos rather than remain subservient to the status quo. Where a bad solution is better than more of the same.

It’s the kind of populist energy that ignites change, disrupts markets, overturns institutions and wins elections.

The tidal forces that lifted Donald Trump to his second presidency include an element of this powerful sentiment thrumming through an exasperated public today. While economic metrics were argued to support the incumbents – inflation and unemployment down, stock market up – it did not reflect the experience of voters.

“You can’t argue people into feeling better with statistics,” we said, reflecting on the election.

Despite selectively “good” numbers for healthcare, people don’t feel good about healthcare in the US. You can’t absorb the online reaction of the last week and conclude otherwise.

No, no, you say. That’s just social media. It distorts reality, exaggerating every issue beyond its due. It’s the media of extremes.

Any traditional institutions come to mind who have recently failed to address inconvenient public attitudes at great cost? (We’re looking at you, Democratic party.)

That’s the risk to the healthcare industry in this tsunamic moment, too.

Anger at Everything, Everyone

This mistake for healthcare writ large is to assume today’s howls of complaints are reserved for insurers alone.

Hospitals are not safely shielded from the public’s frustration with healthcare. Recall the finding above, with the majority of people across the country saying both providers and payers put profits over patients.

Providers. Payers. Pharma. We insiders differentiate defensively into tribal units and, sometimes, rightly so. But, to the public, it’s the system of care, the cost of care and the experience of care that is failing to serve the community. It’s all of it all together that’s enraging.

“People are just frustrated and angry at everything,” former Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told the New York Times, “We can’t ignore the anger, we have to understand it within its context.”

To “understand it within its context” may require a deeper level of listening to your public – and an appreciation of their position – than the industry has done. It may require different questions, too. It may not be enough to ask about your brand. How about “is healthcare working for you?”

Whatever you do, don’t get trapped in a bubble where you disregard the experiences you hear because a few numbers say something else. Hold your assumptions up to the light, dig into self-scrutiny and potentially rethink your organization’s approach to delivering care.

Critically, don’t assume when this storm passes (and it will), that the energy driving it has subsided (it hasn’t). Our industry should feel haunted by it.

The political power reflected in this cloudburst of thunder and lightning will be harnessed for change by someone or some group. Will it be good, smart, informed change? Thoughtless, emotional, break-it-to-fix-it change?

Despite the anger and erosion of trust, providers are still uniquely positioned to answer those questions, especially through the voices consumers tell us they trust most: doctors and nurses. Will we risk crafting and advancing an answer that stretches beyond today’s incentives?

We believe this can be a defining moment if our industry chooses it to be. A turning point if we decide it to be so. That’s now a question for 2025.

We’ll be here, asking the deeper questions, discerning insights, shaping the solutions with you in the wake of this maelstrom.

After all, as the esteemed professor and author David Cooperrider says, “We live in the world our questions create.”

Let’s ask better questions and make healthcare better.

Contributors: David Shifrin, Isaac Squyres, Tim Stewart, Emme Nelson Baxter Image Credit: Savannah Ray