With the recent acquisition of a Texas-based company, UnitedHealth Group has waded deeper into the sale of “supplemental” health plans that consumer advocates say provide questionable value to subscribers. Earlier this year, Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group acquired a company called HealthMarkets Inc., which includes a division for supplemental insurance policies that last year covered about 850,000 people.
Hospitals would have to disclose the discounted prices they negotiate with insurance companies under a Trump administration rule that could upend the $1 trillion hospital industry by revealing rates long guarded as trade secrets.
For decades, Hahnemann University Hospital served as the main safety-net hospital for downtown Philadelphia's neediest residents. But last week, it released its last patient. Within a month, the hospital's 2,572 staff will all have been laid off, and the doors will close, leaving a gaping hole in the city's ability to serve its poor — not to mention any victims of trauma, like shootings or car accidents.
One Medical is now valued at close to $2 billion. The company is signing on hospitals as partners, expanding geographically and adding services for mental health. One investor says it can be “the Starbucks of primary care.”
Optimism is in short supply when it comes to health-care stocks as investors can’t see when the sector will recover from an array of regulatory threats. Plagued by concerns about drug pricing and jitters over proposals for a U.S. government-run system, health care has gone from the top-performing group in the S&P 500 Index last year to its worst in 2019.
I have founded, invested in, and exited several healthcare ventures. Along the way I’ve raised outside capital, I’ve failed, I’ve tried again, and I’ve reached profitability. Below are a few lessons I took away from my experiences so far.