UnitedHealth Group, the company that owns healthcare conglomerate UnitedHealth, said on Thursday that it is cooperating with the federal government as it fields criminal and civil requests from authorities.
The company announced its cooperation with the feds in a statement published to its website on Thursday. “UnitedHealth Group (the “Company”) proactively reached out to the Department of Justice after reviewing media reports about investigations into certain aspects of the Company’s participation in the Medicare program,” the statement reads. “The Company has full confidence in its practices and is committed to working cooperatively with the Department throughout this process.” The New York Times writes that the investigation seems to center around UnitedHealth’s Medicare offerings:
The probe appears to focus on the private insurance plans that UnitedHealth offers as an alternative to traditional Medicare. The company is the largest supplier of these Medicare Advantage plans, which are sold to millions of older Americans and to people with disabilities. The business has become a critical source of revenues to UnitedHealth as Americans have increasingly chosen to enroll in these plans instead of the government’s program.
UnitedHealth has had a rocky few years. Last year, its CEO, Brian Thompson, was gunned down in front of his hotel in Manhattan. A 27-year-old man, Luigi Mangione, was arrested in connection with Thompson’s killing (Mangione, due to his good looks and his supposed leftist politics, has since gone on to become an internet sensation), but he has denied responsibility for the executive’s murder. At the time of Thompson’s death, the company was weathering multiple crises, including court cases and government probes. Prior to becoming UnitedHealth’s CEO, Thompson ran UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare business. Citing a former colleague, the Washington Post previously reported that legal “scrutiny around UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare business regarding potentially overbilling the government affected Thompson personally during that time.”
Allegations of anti-competitive practices have dogged UnitedHealth. In February of 2024, the Justice Department launched an antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth and, in November of that year, sued to block the company’s acquisition of a home health and hospice services provider. Not long after Thompson’s death, a pair of bipartisan Congressional bills were introduced that sought to break up UnitedHealth. The company has also faced multiple recent lawsuits, including one related to allegations that it uses algorithms to deny care for seniors enrolled in its Medicare Advantage plans.
In March of 2024, the company was the victim of a large cyberattack. The attack, the work of a ransomware group, “paralyzed” the company’s billing systems—leading to widespread dysfunction for medical care providers throughout the country. The attack impacted the sensitive personal information of over 100 million people, including Social Security numbers and billing information, and United eventually paid Blackcat, the group behind the attack, $22 million. In a congressional hearing, Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, admitted that the criminals had hacked the company using a web portal that did not require multi-factor authentication.
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