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Reports it took over $6 Billion in profit out of healthcare for Wall Street in Q3 2024 release. Trump’s Project 2025 would DOUBLE UnitedHealth’s privatized Medicare revenue and profit.
Due to Trump’s Project 2025 implementation
Summary: UnitedHealth would be one of the largest financial beneficiaries of Project 2025, since it is the largest private health insurance corporation in America, the 4th largest company in the country, and the largest writer of privatized Medicare Advantage plans, with 7.8 million people insured through a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan. Because of UnitedHealth’s massive scale, the harm it causes through its denials of care is unprecedented – whether through prior authorization denials, claim denials, and inadequate networks that prevent beneficiaries from receiving care or increase the financial strain of receiving care. UnitedHealth would be empowered by Trump’s Project 2025 to harm more Americans than virtually any other private corporation, other than fossil fuel companies, that benefits from his plan.
Trump’s Project 2025 lays the groundwork for the eventual complete privatization of Medicare: it plans to “Make Medicare Advantage the default enrollment option,” despite the fact that privatized Medicare costs the public more than traditional public Medicare.
Under this plan, people who are sick or injured will stay sick longer, even dying while UnitedHealthcare and other privatized Medicare plans delay or deny their treatment. Millions more people who get the treatment they need will be wrongly stuck with bills that force them to choose between rent or medicine and debt collectors.
The scale of UnitedHealth’s financial benefit and harm caused due to Trump’s Project 2025.
Currently half of Medicare recipients are insured through a privatized version of the program called Medicare Advantage. By making privatized Medicare the default option, Project 2025 envisions a completely privatized program – roughly doubling Medicare Advantage Organizations’ (of which UnitedHealthcare is the largest) cost and harms to people insured by the program.
People insured: UnitedHealthcare would be expected to cover 15.6 million people via its Medicare Advantage plans as the eventual result of Project 2025’s passage with a Trump victory. The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health & Human Services found that Medicare Advantage Organizations (of which UnitedHealthcare is the largest) improperly denied care (prior-authorization denial) 13% of the time and denied payment for care improperly 18% of the time. Because this is a denial rate per procedure, not per person, an estimated 33% of people covered by Medicare Advantage experience a denial by their privatized insurer annually. With Project 2025’s implementation that would mean 5.2 million people would be denied care by UnitedHealthcare alone. This figure is well above traditional Medicare denial rates due to inappropriate denials and denials outside the scope of traditional Medicare rules.
Focus on UnitedHealth Group: While all private insurers who offer Medicare Advantage policies would financially benefit from Project 2025’s adoption, UnitedHealth would likely benefit the most as the largest private health insurance corporation in America, the 4th largest company in the country, and the largest writer of privatized Medicare Advantage plans with 7.8 million people insured through a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan. According to an analysis by KFF Health News, Medicare Advantage plans are the most profitable for insurers (compared to privatized Medicaid and insurance people obtain through employers). In fact Medicare Advantage insurers made a gross margin (profit) of $1,982 per person they covered.
UnitedHealthcare’s revenue from Medicare Advantage, an estimated $137 billion, could be expected to double to $274 billion annually as a result of Project 2025. UnitedHealth Group would likely benefit the most in sheer profit and revenue compared with any other company in America.
Beyond the financial waste and cost to people in America caused by the increased privatization of Medicare, this causes health concerns because of the high denial rates within Medicare Advantage. UnitedHealthcare would be expected to cover 15.6 million people via its Medicare Advantage plans as the eventual result of Project 2025’s passage with a Trump victory. WIth 33% of recipients experiencing denials annually that would mean 5.2 million people would be denied care annually by UnitedHealthcare alone.
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