UnitedHealth’s Unchecked Growth Has Caused Widespread Misery
Despite antitrust regulators’ efforts to rein it in, UnitedHealth Group has been growing to control ever more of the health care sector. The corporation’s expanding power has meant worse care, higher prices, and a mounting human toll.
A view outside the UnitedHealthcare corporate headquarters on December 4, 2024, in Minnetonka, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
For years before the shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, regulators unsuccessfully fought to enforce antitrust regulation against the growing health care giant.
In 2022, the Justice Department sued to stop the insurer’s parent company from a merger that gave it access to the patient data of its rivals. Federal prosecutors argued UnitedHealth Group’s acquisition represented “an inflection point in the health care industry,” saying it would stifle innovation, leading to worse outcomes and higher medical bills. But the judge in the case ignored decades of investigations and lawsuits alleging the health care company used market consolidation to limit care. He ruled the purchase would result in “less waste and lower costs.”
Left unsaid at the time was that the judge in question had a financial interest in UnitedHealth Group.
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