Two months after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson sent shockwaves through the much-reviled U.S. health insurance industry, the company's parent, UnitedHealth Group, is making aggressive moves to protect its image.
Responding to a slew of attacks online, often coupled with the glorification of Luigi Mangione (who was charged with Thompson's murder outside a midtown Manhattan hotel in December, and allegedly wrote a short manifesto calling health insurers "parasites"), the company has hired a law firm that specializes in defamation cases. Clare Locke, the Virginia-based practice, previously represented Dominion Voting Systems in a bombshell defamation suit that saw Fox News pay a settlement of $787.5 million for airing false allegations about the company's supposed role in voter fraud during the 2020 election.
UnitedHealth appears eager to make a similar example of Elisabeth Potter, an Austin, Texas, plastic surgeon, and is accusing the doctor of "using her social media following to perpetuate inaccuracies, which is irresponsible, unethical, and dangerous." On Jan. 7, Potter posted a video on Instagram sharing her frustration with the U.S. insurance system, explaining in a text caption that during a procedure, "I was interrupted by a call from United Healthcare — while the patient was already asleep on the operating table. They demanded information about her diagnosis and inpatient stay justification. I had to scrub out mid-surgery to call United, only to find that the person on the line didn't even have access to the patient's full medical information, despite the procedure already being pre-approved.
"It's beyond frustrating and, frankly, unacceptable," Potter continued. "We should be focused on care, not bureaucracy." The comments were rife with fury at UniteHealthcare and for-profit health insurance more broadly. "Luigi for President," wrote one person, while another put in, "One day these health insurance companies will be dead."
Days later, according to reporting from Bloomberg, Potter's attorney received a letter from Clare Locke instructing her to amend the post, apologize, and disavow threats of violence that UnitedHealth claimed had stemmed from the video. But Potter's legal counsel, Jessica Underwood, has said that there is nothing inaccurate in the video that needs correcting. "Dr. Potter will not be silenced by UnitedHealthcare's attempts to threaten and harass her," Underwood has said. The company, meanwhile, has argued that "Dr. Potter's claims that she was called out of surgery are false." Potter's Instagram video remains up on the platform, where it has received more than 350,000 likes.
Elsewhere, UnitedHealth took measures to prevent the dissemination of internal data about its denials of customer claims. (UnitedHealth Group's individual market plans are known to have one of the highest denial rates among all U.S. insurers, a fact that received much media attention in the wake of Thompson's death.) As The Lever reported, a day after President Donald Trump‘s inauguration in January, UnitedHealth submitted a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking for approval to block a shareholder proposal that it use a third-party auditor to assess "previous customer denial claims, particularly where a death was involved, to determine if denial letters included factually incorrect and insensitive information." In cases where this outside analyst determined that a coverage claim should not have been denied, the proposal says, those individuals and family members affected are to be sent an apology letter hand-signed by both a UnitedHealth executive and a member of the company's board of directors.
UnitedHealth's rationale for refusing a vote on such a policy, as its legal team wrote in the letter, is that the proposal was not submitted before "the applicable deadline."
Then, on Jan. 31, the insurer sent a second letter to the SEC, seeking to prevent a shareholder vote on another proposal related to its claim denials. This proposal, if passed by investors, would recommend that UnitedHealth "evaluate how company practices impact access to health care and patient outcomes, including analyses of how often prior authorization requirements or denials of coverage lead to delay or abandonment of medical treatment and serious adverse events for patients." The report produced through this review is also intended to encompass "the public health-related costs and macroeconomic risks created by the company's practices that limit or delay access to health care."
In their letter, UniteHealth rejected the notion of putting this proposal to a shareholder vote because it is "vague and indefinite," and, it argued, an attempt to "impermissibly micromanage" the company.
The insurance giant's attempts to police social media chatter about its business practices and its overtures to Trump's SEC dovetailed earlier this week when hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman shared his opinion of the company's future. "If I still shorted stocks, I would short United Healthcare," he posted to X on Tuesday, adding that the SEC "should do a thorough investigation of the company." He further mused, "I would not be surprised to find that the company's profitability is massively overstated due to its denial of medically necessary procedures and patient care."
Ackman later deleted the speculation, but UnitedHealth flagged his comments to the SEC for potential investigation. The company's stock price dipped the following day, and ended the week about 2.7 percent lower than it was on Tuesday. "Health insurance has long been subject to significant regulatory oversight and earnings caps," UnitedHealth said in a statement responding to the outspoken investor, one of many ultra-wealthy figures to back Trump in 2024 and post prolifically on social media about how only the MAGA movement could save the country. "Any claims that health insurers, which typically have low- to mid-single digit margins, can somehow over-earn are grossly uninformed about the structure and strong regulatory oversight of the sector," the company noted.
All told, UnitedHealth is mounting a far stronger defense of its reputation than it did two months ago, when Thompson's slaying unleashed a flood of hostility that caught it somewhat off-guard. Now, the company looks like it's prepared to grind it out as Mangione's parallel state and federal trials get underway, with heated rhetoric likely to flare up once again.
North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey has fined UnitedHealthcare $3.4 million for violations in claims handling practices involving balance billing, the state Department of Insurance says. The fine stems from a four-year investigation that revealed UnitedHealthcare failed to protect members from unexpected out-of-network charges, particularly in emergency room and anesthesia services.
Blue Cross Blue Shield faced a class action lawsuit alleging that the insurance company broke antitrust laws by limiting market competition. Within the lawsuit, it was argued that this increased premiums and reduced options for customers while generating fixed prices for healthcare services. However, the defendants, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies, deny wrongdoing. The court did not reach a final verdict, however the case was settled. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the companies agreed upon a $2.67 billion settlement fund, which was finalized in October, that will pay customers who filed a claim. If you are a Blue Cross Blue Shield customer, and you haven't filed a claim in the class action lawsuit, then you will not receive a settlement payment, since the deadline for filing a claim has passed.
More than one million Floridians have had their health insurance revoked as a result of a nationwide disenrollment from coverage that was previously safeguarded as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response. Medicaid and CHIP enrolment in Florida has fallen from 5.1 million to 3.8 million between March 2023 and October 2024, according to KFF. While some people may be re-enrolled, transition to employer-sponsored plans, or search for coverage in the wider healthcare marketplace, the decline poses a risk to Florida's most vulnerable populations and underscores challenges in effectively communicating healthcare policies to the public. The Sunshine State lags behind the national average in terms of coverage, ranking fourth in the U.S. for the number of uninsured individuals under 65, according to Census Bureau data cited by Axios.
Disruption of patient care because of UnitedHealthcare's denial rates and long wait times for payment “remain a sticking point” in negotiations with the insurer, Oregon Health & Science University says. OHSU has warned 74,000 patients covered by UnitedHealthcare that they may lose access to OHSU hospitals and clinics unless difficult negotiations result in an agreement before the existing contract expires March 31. "Operational and financial issues in the UnitedHealthcare contracts have resulted in significant disruption of patient care, which OHSU finds unacceptable and remains a sticking point in negotiations," an OHSU spokeswoman says.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana voted to advance RFK Jr.'s nomination for HHS secretary, giving him enough votes to clear the Senate Finance committee and advance to a full floor vote in the Senate. The vote was on party lines, 14-13.