They stole billions while denying thousands of their people’s claims
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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3-5% profit is alot of dead people to be honest
United Health Group is #4 on the Forbes 500. I think they’re quite a bit “for-profit”.
United Healthcares 2023 NET profit was $23 BILLION.
And even if they were just barely scraping by, “No, you don’t understand! We’d go bankrupt if we didn’t defraud and kill our customers instead of providing the coverage they actually paid for!” sounds a lot like an argument for nationalization since clearly the private sector can’t handle it.
The random employee might not make money but the CEO and shareholders sure do.
Well they weren’t typical were they? 33% claim denial amount was it?
It’s 3-5% profit if they paid all claims. That number jumps up astronomically when you factor in denied claims. Not to mention. UHC was valued at 22B 4 days ago. That money didn’t magically appear. They had to show high profitability to pull that off and 3-5% profit on 22B is 660m-1.1B in profits a year. So they can lick the shitty end of my taint after a day of taco bell.
This kind of view is aimed at people who only look at face value and not actually break down the math revealing it’s not “just” 3-5%. We’re talking very serious numbers. Trust me. If they posted the actual profits in dollars instead of %’s more people would be outraged.
“Regulatory capture” lol
43 million is CRAZY
Why are people sticking up to corporations, which have a well documented history of sucking people dry?
Profit is also what is left after paying massive executive salaries. They’re paying top executives 350x the median worker salary, 20+ million per year and STILL making 3-5% margin. If I opened a mom and pop shop with a 3% profit margin but was paying myself $250,000 a year, I’d still be doing alright, even with a “razor thin margin”
My old boss (owned grocery stores) said he was a good businessman if he put $.01 out of every dollar in the bank. He paid himself and his wife a salary, and I saw her for probably 10 mins in the 7 years I worked there. He did take care of us though, expensive holiday parties where he paid the whole bill (with drinks!) Holiday bonuses and performance bonuses. Health care, 401k. He employed like 40 people!
I believe that at the end of the day, the accountants pull out the books and say “look, 3-5%.”
I also believe that there are all sorts of ways to finger the numbers to hide profits or to funnel cash to top management.
If it’s not a profitable business they wouldn’t fight so hard against universal healthcare.
The fact that treating sick people isn’t profitable is exactly the reason it shouldn’t be a privatized industry.
I don’t care what the profit margin is. People’s health shouldn’t be for profit. End of story.
That’s exactly why I got the stock.
I am European. Your issue is not the providers. They are corporations and thus just try to make money. Your issue is your governement denying you the basic human right of free health care.
Just last year I had a panic attack, went to the hospital, got everything checked out and payed a combined total of 10 buckos.
It can be lot of profit in absolute terms if the total revenue is high enough, but it’s also a tiny margin – if they paid out 10% more in claims they’d likely be going broke, which is probably why they have such a focus on claim denial. Denying a small fraction of extra claims is the difference between massive profits and bankruptcy.
The mere fact that health “insurance” (it’s not actually insurance in any traditional sense) has a profit motive behind it….says everything that needs to be said.
Remember, using percentages without a figure that references an actual amount is a great way to lie without lying. 3% to 5% profit on a trillion dollars is a huge departure from 3% to 5% profit on a million dollars.
Hospitals make those margins, for profit health insurance companies are consistently making [record profits](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2023/07/03/despite-rising-costs-big-health-insurers-should-do-just-fine/), while our costs go up:
UnitedHealth Group’s profits nearly doubled from about $5 billion in 2010 to over $10 billion by 2017. That’s a little more than 3% – 5%
I’ve worked for two insurance companies in my life. The first insured yachts, sports stadia, teams, and nonprofits. The fucking owner milked millions from his customers and ALL of the retirement funds to finance the construction of a multi-million dollar mansion that overlooked the Mohawk River/Erie Canal and his minor league hockey team! Total scum and I have NO GUILT in being the records clerk who helped the NY State Insurance board investigators in bringing his ass down!
The second, where I am, insures small businesses, their property and theft. Holy shit, people think ALL insurance companies are like UnitedHealth. We had people come and harass us!!
Q3 Net Margin of UnitedHealth Group was about 6%
3-5% profit margins compared to last fiscal year. Essentially the Poor billionaire company couldn’t date to make a penny less than last year. If they made 100b last year and this year they make 99,999,999,999 it’s still considered a financial loss. 3-5% of that alone is enough to pay everyone’s yearly salary, more than that is profit. Companies are self required to make more money next year than the previous at all expenses. In this case the expenses were people’s lives. It’s all a scam and made to exploit you.
Yeah, “employee compensation” is usually a line item accounted for *before* you get the answer to bottom line profitability. This *is not* charity work
Eliminate them all then. If they aren’t making much profit then they shouldn’t exist.
Some idiot on another thread tried to argue insurance companies don’t make that much profit because of heavy government oversight. Dude, the only oversight by government shills who get funded by insurance company “donations” is to make certain they aren’t restricted by too many regulations.
All they do is profit. They don’t produce anything. They just spread around risk and mark up premiums/deny claims to ensure they profit.
Free Luigi 🇺🇸
#FreeLuigi
I get what you’re saying, but a $43 Million net worth is not that much for a CEO. It would be a ton for an annual salary, but for a guy who has been the CEO for a fortune 500 company for the last 20 years, it’s actually not great.
43 million really isn’t that much