...after Wayne spins off Optum? What are your predictions of how the split goes - all of Optum, spin a separate PBM, leave Payer products in UHC, break it all up: OH, OFS, OI, RX, OA goes to the likes of Gartner?
How long do you think a gutted UHG with just the UHC side of the house would last before PE/VC takes it private?
What do you think Wayne's Bain chop shop buddies will do?
Chop it up: merge UHC with a P&C, benefits broker, or something like Aflac. Get as much $$$ as possible for Optum. PBM - IPO, Wayne is CEO; OH - liquidated, to HCA or in bits; other Optum pieces - sold, to Oracle or a consulting firm; Conway is CEO of UHC; SH rides off in the sunset and can sell.
Break up for sure. Cutting a few hundred K UHC lives won't right the ship and there isn't growth on that side. Exiting MA altogether gets us better footing for margin as govt is cutting costs and reigning in upcoding FWA. CMS stuff feeds RX, so it's a vicious web. Carve out RX and no reason to keep MA.
Palantir's AI in a few months will sla-ghter what's taken Optum/UHC years to do. Lots of wind from the sails. Payers buying Optum tech to "find savings" will largely evaporate.
They will bust up Optum. They UHG is an insurance company not a revenue cycle company. The DOJ is after those activities that are mostly tied to Optum, not UHG. Don’t think that the strategy is to get rid of one big regulatory , lawsuit infested area. This would appease the masses, solve their cash poor status. They may be worth 450 billion, they don’t have 450 billion. They only have 87 billion. Not enough money to cover all their debt.
stock buybacks when price depressed prop it up get rid of some dividend payments.,
You got it backwards pal. UHC funnels all its profits to Optum for accounting reasons.
@am SH needs Optum to keep UHC solvent. Everything exists for the sake of The HMO That Steve Built, including our PBM, etc. It su-ks, because UHC is dead money and Optum could do much more if split from UHG.
The markets know this- if the stock hits $200 and stays there, there will be major pressure to "unlock value" and call it a day.
UHG isn't going to sell off Optum. They'll unload a few underperforming markets and LOBs. They set low goals that they'll hit in Q3/Q4 and it's back to business in 2026.
Who said optum is splitting off from UHC