UnitedHealth Q1 '26 Earnings: Wall Street Is in Love Again
UnitedHealth Group posted Q1 2026 revenue of $111.7 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $7.23, beating the $6.57 consensus by 11%. The company raised its full‑year adjusted EPS guidance to over $18.25 per share and saw its stock jump about 9% to roughly $350. Margins improved as the medical loss ratio fell to 83.9%, driven by shedding 965,000 Medicare Advantage and 220,000 Medicaid members. Intercompany eliminations climbed to $39.5 billion, reflecting deeper integration of its Optum businesses.
Court Rejects Anthem’s Attempt to Relitigate Arbitration Losses Under No Surprises Act
A California federal judge dismissed Anthem's federal claims against billing firm HaloMD, ruling that the No Surprises Act permits only extremely limited judicial review of Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) arbitration outcomes. The court held that the statute already provides mechanisms...
How Private, For-Profit Health Insurance Fails the Most Basic Test of Economics
The piece argues that private, for‑profit health insurance in the United States is a textbook case of market failure. It cites information asymmetry, adverse selection, and lack of genuine competition as structural flaws that let insurers prioritize shareholder returns over...
I Helped Sell HSAs. They're a Bad Deal.
A former Cigna communications chief reveals that high‑deductible health plans (HDHPs) paired with health savings accounts (HSAs) are a bad deal, especially for low‑income and chronically ill patients. The promised consumer‑driven model never delivered price transparency, and most users lack...
Introducing The Health Insurance Influence Tracker
The Center for Health and Democracy Education Fund launched the Health Insurance Influence Tracker, an online tool that maps corporate PAC contributions from major health insurers to members of Congress. Using Federal Election Commission data, the tracker reveals that 86%...
WSJ's Editorial Board Contradicts What Its Newsroom Has Reported on Medicare Advantage
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board defended Medicare Advantage even as its own newsroom revealed a $50 billion overbilling scheme and MedPAC projected $76 billion in overpayments for 2026. The editorial relies on an industry‑funded study to claim cost savings, while reporters...
Hospitals That Sue You for Getting Sick
A joint GWU‑Stanford report reveals that Virginia hospitals filed 1.15 million lawsuits from 2010 to 2024, seeking $1.4 billion in unpaid medical debt. More than 400,000 wage and bank garnishments followed, with attorneys earning $87 million in fees and courts adding $46 million in...
60 Minutes Returns to Remote Area Medical
60 Minutes revisited Remote Area Medical (RAM), showing its expansion from 12 to 90 clinics and over one million patients served. The segment highlighted patients traveling hundreds of miles, sleeping in cars, and waiting in sub‑zero temperatures for basic dental...
This Is Ascent Health Services – the Secretive Swiss Company at the Heart of the Express Scripts Scandal
Ascent Health Services, a Swiss‑registered group purchasing organization created by Cigna’s Express Scripts in 2019, channels billions of dollars in manufacturer‑paid fees that should be passed through as rebates. The GPO’s offshore structure lets Cigna and its partners keep these...
Inside Big Insurance’s $1.7 Trillion Year | EP 2
In this episode of Healthcare Uncovered, hosts Joe Rettino and former Cigna insider Wendell Potter dissect the 2025 earnings of the seven biggest for‑profit insurers, which together generated $1.7 trillion in revenue and $54 billion in profit despite covering 10 million fewer people....
Aetna’s New Automatic Algorithm for Paying Doctors Less
Aetna has introduced a black‑box algorithm that automatically downcodes physician claims, lowering payments for high‑severity ER visits without chart review. The system reclassifies Level 5 services to Level 4, forcing doctors to submit appeals to the same insurer that made the reduction....
Why More U.S. Doctors Are Moving to Canada
U.S. physicians are increasingly relocating to Canada, driven by frustration with insurance‑driven bureaucracy and high patient out‑of‑pocket costs in the United States. Recruitment firm CanAm reports a 65 % surge in inquiries during the early Trump administration, while the Medical Council...
We Destroyed One of the Best Health IT Systems Ever Built — and Replaced It With Something Worse
Veterans Affairs’ homegrown VistA electronic health record, praised for usability and clinical outcomes, was replaced by Cerner’s commercial Millennium platform through a sole‑source $10 billion contract. The transition has ballooned to an estimated $37‑$50 billion, far exceeding the roughly $2 billion that modernizing...
The Wall Street Chameleon: Big Insurance at an Inflection Point | EP 1
In the debut episode of the Healthcare Uncovered Show, hosts Joe Rettino and veteran health‑policy insider Wendell Potter discuss the rapid rise of giant insurance conglomerates like UnitedHealth, CVS/Aetna, and Cigna, describing them as Wall Street‑driven "chameleons" that have taken...
New Deductible Rules Allow for $31,000 Out-of-Pocket Maximum
The Trump administration is proposing a rule that revives catastrophic, or "junk," health plans with a $31,000 family deductible, effectively undoing the ACA’s ban on such high‑deductible products. These plans, once sold by major insurers like Cigna, Aetna and UnitedHealthcare,...