the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Apr 28, 2025
On April 17, United Healthcare’s stock price dropped by a whopping 22% in one day, and it has continued to sink ever since.
United Healthcare is the largest health insurance company in the country, and it is the ninth largest company in the entire world, based on sales revenue. So, when United Healthcare’s stock dropped, it was like a minor earthquake in the corporate world.
The stock dropped despite the fact that the company had just announced record profits of over 9.1 billion dollars for the first three months of the year. But the company’s sin—its cardinal sin—was to announce that it didn’t expect to make quite so much money for the rest of the year. In response, Wall Street speculators rushed to dump the stock because their bets are based on what they think will happen in the future.
The company’s main reason for the expected drop in profits was that many of those enrolled in the company’s Medicare Advantage plans had used more health care than the executives had expected. Only in a world in which health care is just another way to make a profit for the rich would this be considered a bad thing!
Undoubtedly, to satisfy its wealthy stockholders, the company will make it even more difficult for people enrolled in its Medicare Advantage plans to get the care they need. And corporate executives will also descend on Congress to get even bigger overpayments and subsidies from the federal government than they already get.
For United Healthcare, the government is really the goose that keeps on laying the golden egg. The company made a huge bet on Medicare Advantage several years ago—and also on Medicaid—and it has seen big increases in payments from the government ever since.
These payments are so huge, more than three-quarters of all the money that United Healthcare takes in comes from Medicare Advantage and Medicaid, even though the company is also a major provider for big business insurance plans and for Obamacare.
This shows that United Healthcare’s main goal is not to deliver and organize healthcare, but the opposite. It’s simply out to funnel tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money into the bank accounts of the capitalist class through increased dividends and other gimmicks, while locking out tens of millions of the elderly and poor from the vital healthcare that they so desperately need, thus costing the health and lives of the tens of millions of people whom it pretends to serve. And—the company is punished mercilessly by Wall Street speculators at the slightest hint of a slowdown in that flow of corporate profits.