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In short order, Obamacare is evolving into a Medicaid marketplace. Not only in terms of the design and quality of the narrow-network plans that are being offered, but in the actual carriers that sell those policies. Obamacare’s costly regulations mean that the mix of people who sign up are tending to be older and sicker. Many young and otherwise healthy individuals continue to be priced out of the exchanges, even after the benefit of federal subsidies are baked into their costs. Meanwhile, it’s the Medicaid managed care companies that are growing the number of plans they market on the exchanges....

UnitedHealth Group, the largest insurance company in the U.S., on Thursday slashed its earnings outlook, citing new problems related to Obamacare, and told investors it may exit the program's exchanges. "In recent weeks, growth expectations for individual exchange participation have tempered industrywide, co-operatives have failed, and market data has signaled higher risks and more difficulties while our own claims experience has deteriorated," Stephen J. Hemsley, chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group, explained in a press release. The release added that, "UnitedHealthcare has pulled back on its marketing efforts for individual exchange products in 2016. The company is evaluating the viability...

Many of us cheered in January of this year when Marilyn Tavenner, the woman who headed the disastrous rollout of the healthcare.gov website, announced she’d be stepping down from her position as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). At the time, we weren’t too focused on who would be replacing her. Waiting in the wings was Andrew M. Slavitt, now Acting Medicare Chief, who had been biding his time as CMS’ deputy administrator since July 2014. Even though he’s been accused of possible cronyism and conflicts of interest, Andy Slavitt has a special brand of insurance...

In another merger of health insurance giants, Anthem has agreed to acquire Cigna in a $54 billion deal. Anthem (ANTM), a Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurer, said it would buy all of Cigna's (CI)shares in a cash and stock transaction. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2016, if it passes state regulatory approvals and other requirements. The merged insurer would cover 53 million members. The merger would leave only three major players in the insurance industry. Earlier this month, Aetna (AET) struck a deal to buy Humana (HUM) for $37 billion, which would cover...

“Population Health” is an Orwellian extension of UnitedHealth’s plan to profit at the expense of the real health of the people. In our opinion, the term Population Health is a blatant attempt, supported by Obamacare and the current administration, to unilaterally alter the way in which medicine is practiced in the United States. Population Health has been around for years but it’s still being defined today. Tom Sullivan, Executive Editor of HIMSS Media gives some clues in his post, “What exactly is ‘population health,’ anyway?” but confirms that “what has become eminently clear is that defining population health depends on...

Chasing bigger profits, the insurance cartel has now come full circle to embrace pseudoscience wholeheartedly. From deep inside the inner workings of the giant insurance companies comes the very antithesis of fact-based statistics and research: Value-Based Care. Though the concept has been brewing for more than a decade, it’s now hitting the mainstream as the darling for determining how medicine and money will be dispensed. This impressive sounding term essentially justifies the biggest rip-off of all time. Many doctors and physician assistants interviewed by TAMMM staff tell us they whiz through these forms, often putting blanket NOs for answers which...

There are five major medical insurers in America and soon there may be only three. What does this health insurance consolidation mean for the future of healthcare? Clearly, the sacred and confidential nature of the relationship between doctor and patient is history. Big Money has moved in to stay. The medical insurance 500 pound gorilla is about to consolidate into an even more intrusive and dense trust which—as with the banks—will be too big to fail and far too big to control. Few know that during the debate over the Affordable (Unaffordable) Care Act, there were eight lobbyists for each...

The five largest publicly traded health insurance companies (UnitedHealth, Anthem,1 Aetna, Humana and Cigna) — all of which were party to an amicus brief in support of the subsidies filed by America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group for insurance companies — rose an average of 1 percent over their opening prices by 11 a.m. Thursday. The bounce started at approximately 10:10 a.m., right when SCOTUSblog first announced the Supreme Court’s decision. All five companies. That rise amounted to a $3 billion increase in the combined market capitalization of the five companies.

UnitedHealth cured the Ingenix stigma by simply changing its name to OptumInsight. It’s as though they made a deal with a witness protection program. Like other large medical insurers, over the years, they sustain fines for federal racketeering, skirt state laws by systematically reducing, denying and delaying payments owed to doctors for medical care and pay fines in the billions and still they continue on! Who dispenses Medicare and ACA money? Who controls the prices that the exchanges charge? And who is operating the very workings of the exchanges? That would be the leaders of the pack, UnitedHealth and Optum....

Why are people still joining AARP? Their name has crept into our national vocabulary. This is no accident. It baffles the mind how their massive propaganda machine has brainwashed America’s senior masses (eligibility age now dropped to 50!) into forking over their hard earned—and retirement—money to one of America’s biggest public “charities” whose primary beneficiaries are themselves. We plan to peel back as many of these layers of disguise as we possibly can. Our intent is to expose a skillful scheme which is decades old and stronger than ever today. AARP is a sophisticated organization with billions in total assets....

Many doctors are blacklisted and now deemed personae non gratae. Since I revealed the covert relationship between AARP and UnitedHealth Group in my article on 16 October 2012, the duo has now proudly and publicly announced their badly kept secret. Who AARP really is and what drives UnitedHealth Group is a dirty story the public needs to know. AARP derives over 80 percent of its revenue from commissions/royalties from the sale of UnitedHealthcare Group products. This cozy relationship by these fascinating bed mates is being litigated in Texas—in a class action suit, no less—by Dr. John Milton Peacock and Robbie...

Andrew Slavitt, a former executive at the technology company tasked with saving HealthCare.gov and current second-in-command at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was granted an ethics waiver by the Department of Health and Human Services to begin working with his former company immediately.The waiver was granted despite Republican lawmakers’ concerns about Slavitt’s potential conflict of interest. The Daily Signal revealed those concerns in a story yesterday.Slavitt, a former OptumInsight/QSSI group vice president, left the company last month to work as the principal deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Obamacare and HealthCare.gov. His...

Nearly four in 10 seniors worry ObamaCare will cause them to lose doctors they like, despite President Obama's repeated promise to the contrary, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll. That translates into nearly 16 million people age 65 and over. Their concerns appear to be justified. Many seniors are, in fact, already losing access to their doc tors, and more than half a million are losing access to plans they liked this year, as $200 billion in ObamaCare-mandated cuts to the popular Medicare Advantage program start to take effect. Earlier this month, seniors learned that UnitedHealth (UNH) is dropping thousands...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THE BLOG TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM Facts Are Stubborn Things Posted by Macon Phillips Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions. In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to...

UnitedHealth Group has dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The insurer said in October that underfunding of Medicare Advantage plans for the elderly could not be fully offset by the company’s other healthcare business. The company also reported spending more healthcare premiums on medical claims in the third quarter, due mainly to government cuts to payments for Medicare Advantage services. …

Six demonstrators were arrested Monday morning at UnitedHealth Group's corporate headquarters in Minnetonka after they blocked the doors and refused to leave during a protest over health care reform. About 110 protesters sang and spoke about the need to change the way health care is organized and financed in the United States, and said that insurers such as UnitedHealth are making people sicker because the system doesn't offer proper coverage for many patients. They cited what they said is UnitedHealth's practice of "denying care and claims in order to generate record profits." The demonstration was organized by a group called...

New Lawsuit Alleges Pacificare Set Course Of Deception To Avoid Claims and Cancel Policy of 34 Year Old Kidney Cancer Patient To Increase Company Profits.Irvine, CA (PRWEB) November 18, 2006 -- UnitedHealth Group, the nations second largest health insurer, and its subsidiary Pacificare of California were named in a lawsuit yesterday for canceling the health insurance policy and refusing to pay medical bills after a cancer patient sought treatment. (D'ANNA vs PACIFICARE OF CALIFORNIA #GIN057028) The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of San Diego by attorneys Robert K. Scott and Scott Mahoney of the Irvine-based Law Offices of...

Walter Mondale, who is now officially running for the senate seat of the late Paul Wellstone, has resigned from the board of directors of United Health Group effective Oct. 31. Mondale was officially nominated as a candidate Wednesday evening Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth in a press release announcing the resignation, said Mondale had been a director of the company since 1997 and had also served as a director from August 1991 to August 1993.