I honestly wanted to vomit when I read this press release from UnitedHealth disclosing how huge its windfall profits over the last 3 months have been, while millions of Americans lost their jobs & health insurance & over 100k lost their lives. (1/9) sec.gov/Archives/edgar…
You have to wade through 2 paragraphs of complete BS about how “compassionate” UnitedHealth’s employees are, before getting to the real purpose of the release: telling shareholders just how richer they are now.
But there’s a problem for UnitedHealth here... (2/9)
But there’s a problem for UnitedHealth here... (2/9)
When I was at Cigna, I'd help write quarterly earnings releases. I know the tricks corporate flacks use to try to soften bad news. In UnitedHealth’s case, the bad news was an incredible embarrassment of riches!
That won’t look good to the rest of the country. What to do? (3/9)
That won’t look good to the rest of the country. What to do? (3/9)
Their flacks knew people would be outraged by their profiting off of the pandemic, so they began the release with self-congratulatory nonsense about how the company had “expanded its #COVID19 response efforts” to “address the urgent needs of underserved communities.” (4/9)
You have to wade through that crap before finding that the company had its most profitable quarter EVER, making over $6.6 BILLION in profits, as thousands of other companies had to shut their doors & lay off millions. (5/9)
Even that $6.6 billion number obscures just how much the company made. They took in $9.2 billion in profits from its operations, nearly 2x what it made over the same 3 months last year. The net profit margin of its insurance business nearly tripled, from 5.4% to 14.3%. (6/9)
Get this - its “medical loss ratio” (how much it actually pays in medical claims for every dollar it collects in premiums) dropped like a rock, from 83.1% to 70.2%. In other words, during a pandemic, the company paid far less than usual to help people with medical issues! (7/9)
These numbers should make your blood boil & remind you that insurers are unnecessary middlemen. UnitedHealth made all this $ while the number of people “served” by them fell by more than 1.1 million. This game will continue as #COVID19 slams big states like Florida & Texas. (8/9)
I knew insurers would thrive during #COVID19, as elective procedures were cancelled. But the size of UnitedHealth’s windfall shocked even me. It says all you need to know about our health care: During a crisis, millions are suffering, but insurance companies are booming. (/END.)
