UnitedHealth seeks a major role in overhauled health care system

UnitedHealth seeks a major role in overhauled health care system
Article Intro:
"Stephen Hemsley, the CEO of UnitedHealth, is not intimidated. "Leading companies take advantage of disruptive change in the marketplace," he told reporters recently. "Our shareholders will prosper."

They have for years. Under longtime chief executive William McGuire, who left in 2006 amid a stock-options scandal, UnitedHealth diversified rapidly and found one new profit opportunity after another.

In the old days, insurers simply collected premiums, negotiated contracts with doctors and hospitals, and paid bills.

Today, actually insuring health risk makes up less than half of UnitedHealth's earnings, $3 billion last year. The rest comes from managing benefits for large employers, administering public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and selling various technology and data services.

Serious competition

With a grip on almost every aspect of health care, UnitedHealth and a handful of other big insurers have become juggernauts -- simultaneously loved by Wall Street and despised by critics who see them as unnecessary middlemen.

Some members of Congress, doctors and consumer advocates think the country should simply get rid of private insurers and go to a single-payer system, often dubbed Medicare-for-all."