Inside UnitedHealth’s Dramatic Faltering

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

UnitedHealth is the largest healthcare company in the U.S. But over the last 18 months, a string of challenges, including several Justice Department probes, have tested the company. WSJ’s Anna Wilde Mathews and Christopher Weaver report on how the company rose to prominence, why its CEO is out, and how it has weathered the setbacks. Annie Minoff hosts. Further Listening: -Medicare, Inc. Part 1: How Insurers Make Billions From Medicare -Medicare, Inc. Part 2: Taxpayers Paid for Care Denied by Insurers Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In the United States, healthcare is big business, and one company has spent years on top.
0:12.3	United Health is really a health care giant.
0:15.9	That's my colleague, Anna Wildy Matthews.
0:18.8	They have about $400 billion in annual revenue. They own the biggest
0:23.4	U.S. health insurer, which is called United Health Care, but they're also one of the biggest
0:28.8	providers of health care. They own a sprawling network of doctor groups. They own a large pharmacy
0:35.5	benefit manager, and they own a bunch of just sort of data and technology units.
0:40.9	Pretty much any corner of the U.S. healthcare industry that you can think of, United Health probably has some kind of element of it.
0:49.4	Anna and another colleague, Chris Weaver, have been reporting on United Health.
0:54.3	And over the last year and a half, they've seen the company experience an onslaught of trouble and setbacks.
1:01.4	United Health groups had one of the most challenging years that any business could possibly imagine.
1:06.7	They're facing multiple investigations by the Department of Justice.
1:10.2	The Justice Department is investigating United Health Care's billing practices for Medicare.
1:15.6	They had a huge hack that crippled portions of the U.S. health system.
1:19.5	A cyber hack on the nation's largest health care platform, United Health Group, continues to cripple critical services.
1:26.9	One of their executives was shot in Midtown Manhattan.
1:30.5	The CEO of United Health Care has just been shot to death.
1:36.3	And their investors are in a revolt.
1:38.2	United Health shares are tumbling today.
1:40.7	They're down more than 20%.
1:42.5	So what happened They're down more than 20%. So what happened?
1:48.9	How did the country's most powerful health insurer end up here?
	...

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