How UnitedHealth Got Its Swagger Back
UnitedHealth calls dumping a million seniors “swagger.”
Yes, the company plans to restore its “swagger” by cutting Medicare Advantage members who cost too much.
Your grandmother costs too much. Your father costs too much. You will cost too much when you need them most.
The math broke. Stock down 45%. Insurance margins crashed from 5.6% to 2.1%. Optum margins fell from 8.3% to 1%. $16B dollars vanished with no explanation. So they dumped the patients who made the spreadsheets look bad. Wahhhhhhh!
UnitedHealth spent $118B buying competitors and rolling them into Optum. Now Optum controls 10% of American doctors. Your surgeon works for your insurer. The company that denies your claim employs the doctor who ordered it.
Mayo Clinic kicked them out. Johns Hopkins kicked them out. HealthPartners cited denial rates ten times higher than other insurers and walked.
The Senate found their AI tool nH Predict pushed post acute care denials from 8.7% to 22.7% in three years. These are seniors who need rehab to go home instead of dying in facilities.
Now those same seniors get letters saying their plans no longer exist. Not because the company failed them. Because they failed to be profitable.
I survived brain cancer at 21. The bills almost killedmy family after the tumor could not. That was 1995. We still let insurance companies decide who deserves to live based on quarterly earnings.
Both parties finally agree the industry is parasitic. (As does my new BFF Mark Cuban.) Trump called them money suckers. Warren wants them broken up. The question is whether we act before another million seniors lose coverage to restore corporate swagger.
Your vote matters. If this hits home, tell me where you have seen it happen. Add a comment or a rage restack and drop your story in the thread. One reply pushes this in front of more people who deal with the same mess.
Are you new here? My condolences and my thanks. Follow along and stay loud with the rest of us. More voices means more pressure on a system that counts on silence
SOURCE (PAY GATE) ➡️ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/unitedhealth-is-dropping-a-million-seniors-from-medicare-advantage-as-it-aims-to-restore-its-swagger-ecab71c2