UnitedHealth proposes managed-care plan for Medicare, Medicaid

UnitedHealth Group Inc., the biggest U.S. health insurer by sales, said enrolling dual recipients of Medicare and Medicaid into managed-care plans would save as much as $1.62 trillion in the U.S. over 25 years.

Almost 9 million Americans receive coverage from both Medicare, the U.S. health plan for the elderly and disabled, and the Medicaid program for the poor. UnitedHealth proposed in a report today to combine benefits of the programs into a single plan to better coordinate patient care.