A December 2, 2019 press release on UnitedHealth Group announced that “revenues for 2019 are expected to approximate $242 billion, with net earnings to approach $14.25 per share and adjusted net earnings to approach $15 per share.”  Cool, cool.

UnitedHealth Group is ranked 6th on the Fortune 500 list. The CEO of UnitedHealth Group, David Wichmann, received a total compensation of $18.1 million in 2018, according to an April 22, 2019 article in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

A July 18, 2019 article in The Washington Post reported that “Two families of children with a rare and debilitating disease celebrated Thursday after UnitedHealthcare reversed previous denials and approved coverage for a $2.1 million gene therapy.” The article further stated, “UnitedHealth Group’s chief medical officer, Richard Migliori, said in an interview Thursday that public attention on the families’ plight played no role in the reversal. He said the decisions were based on clinical evidence.” Okay, sure, Jan. OF COURSE, NEGATIVE MEDIA ATTENTION PLAYED A ROLE IN THE REVERSAL.

According to a March 6, 2019 Jurist item, a “federal judge ruled Tuesday against UnitedHealth Group and its subsidiary United Behavioral Health, saying the insurer used overly restrictive guidelines to improperly deny benefits to thousands of mentally ill insureds.”

A May 1, 2019 article found on BenefitsPro.com reported that a federal judge “who survived prostrate cancer has stepped down from a putative class action lawsuit over a health insurance company’s ‘immoral and barbaric’ denial of a radiation treatment.”

Read it here for yourself.  “It is undisputed among legitimate medical experts that proton radiation therapy is not experimental and causes much less collateral damage than traditional radiation. To deny a patient this treatment, if it is available, is immoral and barbaric.”

These stories are not hard to find. Insurance companies will fight and claw for every penny. They raise our deductibles and out of pocket expenses until the point where we forgo important surgeries or medication just to live. A December 2019 Gallup poll recently announced: “A record 25% of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition in the past year because of the cost, up from 19% a year ago and the highest in Gallup’s trend.”

Yeah, I am one of these people. I am putting off a couple of surgeries because I cannot afford the deductible, plus I cannot afford to earn 70% percent pay on top of that. Once I pay off my basement waterproofing debt, I could perhaps afford to have the surgeries I need done for [redacted].

CNBC reported on February, 11, 2019: “A new study from academic researchers found that 66.5 percent of all bankruptcies were tied to medical issues —either because of high costs for care or time out of work.”

The December Gallup poll also stated:

Reports of delaying treatment for a serious condition jumped 13 percentage points in the past year to 36% among adults in households earning less than $40,000 per year while it was essentially flat (up a non statistically significant three points) among those in middle-income and higher-income households.

As a result of the spike in lower-income households this year, the gap between the top and bottom income groups for failure to seek treatment for a serious medical condition widened to 23 percentage points in 2019. The income gap had averaged 17 points in the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency, but narrowed to an average 11 points in the first few years after implementation of the ACA, from 2015 to 2018.

I live alone and I’m single. I worry about the next medical crisis frequently, and if that’s going to be the one that forces me to sell my house, car or camera gear. What am I going to have to pay to stay alive? I have had my loved ones go, “Oh, well, your insurance company will cover you,” and not necessarily take my fears seriously. If given the opportunity, my insurance company will drop me because I’m expensive to keep alive and healthy. 

So congrats, UnitedHealth Group, on your stellar year! People are forgoing medical procedures and rationing medication while you all celebrate a profitable year. Good job, guys.