Thanks for the excellent article. You are absolutely spot on. The goal of Optum/UHC is to "become too big to fail" i.e. too big to be regulated. They rely on the scale and size and control being the largest private health insurer in the country, while at the same time leveraging public money through Medicare Advantage plans to spend less on care and regularly increase their profit margins.
Their purpose is multifold, using Optum scale in owning medical practices across multiple states which focus on the Medicare Advantage market. Optum receives increasing revenue from Medicare Advantage while trying to reduce spend on the members in the name of quality, denial of care, to increase their profit margin.
Optum regularly uses pressure to each individual care subsidiary to buy the products of its other subsidiaries.
State regulators, Congress, FTC should be doing their jobs by examining the clear conflict of interest that is there when a payor and provider are both owned by the same entity and every dollar "saved" by the providing entity (Optum) simply relates to increased profit margin for the payor (UHG).
Their growth and control over health care should worry all involved.
Atrius is an extremely well run and well considered multispeciality group practice and accountable care organization with relationships with Tufts and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It is doubtful that Optum can improve on Atrius. Atrius's motivation is most likely financial due to Covid. Acquisition by Optum could disrupt the Massachusetts market if Atrius then becomes an exclusive UnitedHealth provider. We need to know a lot more about this.
Te health care system in the USofA: it's do broke the only way out is a reboot to universal health care. Anything else based on the corporate system of greed and maximizing shareholders profits will never work.
UHG is a better run company than average for this industry, which isn't saying much obviously, but the effects of these acquisitions are hard to predict. Everyone wants to be in the payment processing space because you can automate the sh*t out of it and it's essentially pure profit.
Thanks for the excellent article. You are absolutely spot on. The goal of Optum/UHC is to "become too big to fail" i.e. too big to be regulated. They rely on the scale and size and control being the largest private health insurer in the country, while at the same time leveraging public money through Medicare Advantage plans to spend less on care and regularly increase their profit margins.
Their purpose is multifold, using Optum scale in owning medical practices across multiple states which focus on the Medicare Advantage market. Optum receives increasing revenue from Medicare Advantage while trying to reduce spend on the members in the name of quality, denial of care, to increase their profit margin.
Optum regularly uses pressure to each individual care subsidiary to buy the products of its other subsidiaries.
State regulators, Congress, FTC should be doing their jobs by examining the clear conflict of interest that is there when a payor and provider are both owned by the same entity and every dollar "saved" by the providing entity (Optum) simply relates to increased profit margin for the payor (UHG).
Their growth and control over health care should worry all involved.
Atrius is an extremely well run and well considered multispeciality group practice and accountable care organization with relationships with Tufts and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It is doubtful that Optum can improve on Atrius. Atrius's motivation is most likely financial due to Covid. Acquisition by Optum could disrupt the Massachusetts market if Atrius then becomes an exclusive UnitedHealth provider. We need to know a lot more about this.
Te health care system in the USofA: it's do broke the only way out is a reboot to universal health care. Anything else based on the corporate system of greed and maximizing shareholders profits will never work.
Universal Health Care or shit u deside
UHG is a better run company than average for this industry, which isn't saying much obviously, but the effects of these acquisitions are hard to predict. Everyone wants to be in the payment processing space because you can automate the sh*t out of it and it's essentially pure profit.