Lawmakers and Regulators Scrutinize UnitedHealth’s Growth, Arguing Investors, Not Consumers, Are Benefitting

By Consumers for Quality Care, on May 14, 2024

The nation’s largest private health care insurer, UnitedHealth, is under a microscope by lawmakers and regulators due to antitrust concerns and a recent cyberattack which had far-reaching implications across the country’s health care system, according to The Washington Post.

What started as a relatively small Minnesota-based health system in the 1970s has since grown to a behemoth that represents at least 5 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. UnitedHealth, which covers nearly 50 million consumers, reported $22 billion in profit last year.

Not only is UnitedHealth the largest private health care insurer in the country, but it also oversees a large network of 2,200 subsidiaries employing 90,000 physicians, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and its own billing and data analytics business. UnitedHealth’s vertical consolidation has allowed the company to acquire multiple sectors of the health care system, creating a structure that puts profits before patients, according to Christopher Whaley, Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy, and Practice at Brown University. “You can acquire providers and essentially pay yourself. It provides a disincentive to really care that much about prices and spending growth,” said Whaley.

The Department of Justice has led aggressive investigations looking into UnitedHealth’s business practices and operations, specifically those exploiting loopholes that result in the company spending less money on consumer care.

Decreased competition hurts consumers, often leading to fewer options for care and higher out-of-pocket costs. CQC urges regulators and lawmakers to continue to scrutinize vertical consolidation in the health care system and work to ensure that consumers don’t foot the bill for anti-competitive practices.