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U.S. health care is broken. Here are 3 ways it’s getting worse
MINNETONKA, MINN.: Flags fly at half mast outside the United Healthcare corporate headquarters on Dec. 4, 2024, after CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead on a street in New York City. The shocking act of violence sparked a widespread consumer outcry over U.S. health care costs and denied claims.
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Stephen Maturen/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
One year after UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was shot and killed, the crisis in U.S. health care has gotten even worse — in ways both obvious and hidden.
People increasingly can’t afford health insurance. The costs of both Obamacare and employer-sponsored insurance plans are set to skyrocket next year, in a country where health care is already the most expensive in the developed world.
Yet even as costs surge, the companies and the investors who profit from this business are also struggling financially. Shares in UnitedHealth Group, the giant conglomerate that owns UnitedHealthcare and that plays a key role in the larger stock market, have plunged 44% from a year earlier. (It was even worse before a rally in UnitedHealth shares on Wednesday.)
“UnitedHealth’s reputation in the investment community, before December 4 last year, was [as] a safe place to put your money. And that basically got all blown up,” says Julie Utterback, a senior equity analyst who covers health care companies for Morningstar.
Then, on Dec. 4, 2024, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot on a Manhattan street on his way to an investor event. The shocking act of violence sparked a widespread consumer outcry over U.S. health care costs and denied claims, and plunged UnitedHealth Group into a public relations disaster.
But that was only the start of the business woes for the company and its entire industry — which are facing regulatory scrutiny, tightening margins, and investor skepticism. Many of UnitedHealth’s top competitors have also seen their shares suffer in the past year, at a time when the stock market in general has been hitting tech-driven record highs. The S&P 500’s healthcare index has lagged the larger market. And some Wall Street analysts are bracing for another rocky year in the business of health care.
“Near term, there’s a lot more volatility to come,” says Michael Ha, a senior equity research analyst who covers health care companies for investment bank Baird.
Dec. 4 started to reveal the depth of U.S. health care problems
This wide-ranging crisis for both consumers and businesses underlines the brokenness of the U.S. health care system: When neither the people it’s supposed to serve nor the people making money from it are happy, does it work at all?
“We’re really at an inflection point,” says Katherine Hempstead, a senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the author of a book about the insurance industry.
“Every segment of the health insurance business right now is stressed,” she adds.
These stresses became brutally visible a year ago — and persist today. Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old suspect in Thompson’s killing, was in court this week for hearings ahead of his trial.
But the crisis in U.S. health care is much bigger than his case. Here are three main ways it’s playing out this year, from Main Street to Wall Street.
Prices are going up — and people are getting ready to go without medical care
No matter how you get your health insurance, it will likely cost more next year.
For the roughly 24 million people who get their insurance through the government’s health care exchanges, Affordable Care Act subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year — sending premiums soaring. Another 154 million people are insured through their employers — and premiums for those plans are also set to skyrocket.
Costs are increasing for several reasons: Drug companies have developed more effective cancer treatments and weight-loss drugs — which they can charge more for. More people are going back to the doctor after the pandemic kept them away, which is creating more demand and allowing providers and hospitals to increase prices. And some hospitals, doctors’ offices, insurance companies and other businesses within the health care system have merged or consolidated, often allowing the remaining businesses to raise prices for their services.
The end result is that nearly half of U.S. adults expect they won’t be able to afford necessary health care next year, according to a Gallup poll published last month.
Jennifer Blazis and her family are among them.
“It just always blows me away, how much I have to consider cost when something happens with the kids,” the 44-year-old nonprofit worker and mother of four told NPR this fall in an interview for its Cost of Living series.
Blazis and her family live in Colorado Springs and get their insurance through her husband’s small property-management business. She says she’s postponing leg surgery that would address a condition that’s causing her pain, but which her doctors say is not yet urgent.
“We wait to go to the doctor because we know if we do, we’re going to get hit with just a massive bill,” Blazis says. “And this is with … a really good health insurance plan that our [family] company pays a ton of money for.”
Yet even the biggest businesses selling these services are struggling
Some of those increased costs are also hitting insurers — even the ones that also control other parts of the health care ecosystem.
UnitedHealth Group is far more than just the owner of the largest U.S. health insurance company. It’s one of the largest companies in the world, and it’s involved in almost every part of how Americans access health care — from employing or overseeing 10% of the doctors they see to processing about 20% of the prescriptions they fill.
It’s also one of the most influential stocks on Wall Street. UnitedHealth Group is one of 30 companies that makes up the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average — so what happens with its shares helps determine what happens with the overall stock market.
The company has had a miserable year on both fronts. The reasons come down to profits, more than PR: UnitedHealth and its competitors have been facing rising costs in the Medicare Advantage businesses that allow private insurers to collect government payments for managing the care of seniors.
These programs were once widely seen as money-makers for big health insurers – but now they’ve gotten UnitedHealth embroiled in financial and regulatory trouble, including a Department of Justice investigation into its Medicare business. The company abruptly replaced its CEO in May, a few months before it acknowledged that it was facing the government probe.
Now UnitedHealth is trying to get rid of about 1 million Medicare Advantage patients — and otherwise move on from the past year’s many problems.
“We want to show that we can get back to the swagger the company once had,” Wayne DeVeydt, UnitedHealth’s chief financial officer, told investors last month.
One prominent investor is betting it can: In August, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it had bought more than 5 million shares in UnitedHealth Group. The news helped lift the stock from its depths — but it still has a long way to go for both its share price and its profits to recover from this year’s slump.
Chief Executive Stephen Hemsley acknowledged as much in October, promising investors “higher and sustainable, double-digit growth beginning in 2027 and advancing from there.”
Spokespeople for UnitedHealth declined to comment for this story.
Wall Street used to think health care was safe. It’s waiting for a turnaround
Health care spending accounts for about a fifth of the U.S. economy, making the for-profit companies that earn this money some of the most powerful in the world.
That’s helped their appeal to investors, who traditionally tend to consider health care stocks “defensive,” or safe, investments. That appeal sometimes overrides the industry’s current financial challenges: In the past month, as Wall Street had its now-quarterly panic over the artificial intelligence bubble, health care stocks actually outperformed the broader market for a few weeks.
Still, health care is massively lagging the market in the long term.
Morningstar’s Utterback is optimistic that the industry can eventually turn around its deeper financial, regulatory, and reputational problems. She even calls most health care stocks “undervalued” currently — but she warns that investors will have to have a lot of patience if they want to see bets on the sector pay off.
“My explicit forecast period is 10 years. It’s not three,” she says. “There’s a murky outlook here for the next couple years, at least.”
Lionel Messi #10 of Argentina celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during their World Cup match against Egypt in Atlanta on Tuesday.
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They looked beaten. And out. Argentina, the defending World Cup champion and No. 1-ranked team, was down 2-0 late against Egypt.
Then, in a span of 13 remarkable minutes, Argentina scored not once, not twice, but three times, capping a comeback for the ages and leaving Egypt stunned and shellshocked.
For much of the game in Atlanta, Egypt was in control, hobbling Argentina early. The Egyptian attack began almost immediately with a stunning header goal delivered by Yasser Ibrahim in the 15th minute. After that, Egypt’s defense closed ranks, making it practically impossible for Argentina to equalize.
It was downhill from there for the Argentines: team captain Lionel Messi failed to convert a penalty kick, and in the 67th minute, Egypt got a second goal from Mostafa Ziko (after an earlier Egyptian goal had been disallowed after a video review). It looked like Argentina was finished. On the brink of elimination.
But no one told the Argentine players that.
In the 79th minute, Lionel Messi began doing his thing. He fired a cross near the Egyptian goal, and Cristian Romero headed it in. Messi was not done. Four minutes later, he powered a shot past the Egyptian keeper. It was his eighth goal of this tournament, the most of any player. The score was 2-2.
Then, in stoppage time, yet another Argentina header and another goal, this time from Enzo Fernandez.
“This is the World Cup for you,” said Messi after the game. “It wasn’t easy to come back from two goals down. But as I always say, this group never gives up. We always try to fight until the end.”
French referee François Letexier speaks with Egypt forward Mohamed Salah during the World Cup Round of 16 match between Argentina and Egypt in Atlanta.
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Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
Afterward, Egypt coach Hossam Hassan complained about the French referee and the officiating. “I am not convinced. I am not convinced with this outcome. I’m not convinced with the way things unfolded during this match,” said Hassan in a post-match news conference. “We have been treated unfairly today. We have suffered injustice.”
“We would have deserved to earn this win, but we are leaving with honor, with pride, regardless of this defeat,” said Hossan.
African soccer teams have been the stars of this World Cup. Morocco has yet to lose a game. Cape Verde qualified for the first time in its history and stymied Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia. Argentina barely beat them in a nail-biter of a match.
For Egypt, getting this far in the tournament is historic in itself: it’s the first time the team has made it this far. For Argentina, it was a terrifying yet relieving victory: several players, including Messi himself, cried after the game.
Next, they move to the quarterfinals and will play the winner of today’s Switzerland-Colombia match.
Top Senate Democrats are pushing for answers on whether a provision in a controversial settlement agreement between President Trump and his own administration applies to companies co-founded by or affiliated with the Trump family.
As part of a deal struck in May by the Justice Department to resolve a lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump, the Internal Revenue Service is permanently barred from pursuing claims against Mr. Trump, his oldest sons Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization based on prior tax returns.
In a one-page document signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and dated May 19, the Justice Department said the defendants in the president’s lawsuit — the IRS and the Treasury Department — are “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from “prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims” arising from tax returns filed before the settlement took effect. Blanche also wrote that the settlement applies to “parties including trusts, parent, sister, or related companies, affiliates, and subsidiaries.”
Now, Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee Ron Wyden of Oregon are pushing 11 businesses and organizations with ties to the Trump family to get answers for the “significant questions” the settlement raises relating to the tax audit provision, and whether the companies are included in the deal.
“Under the guise of a so-called legal settlement, the Trump administration has attempted to decree that the President, his family, and their entire business empire — potentially including entities with even the vaguest ‘affiliation’ to the family — are to face zero consequences if they have committed a range of financial crimes or misdeeds — regardless of the severity of the violation,” the senators wrote in letters transmitted to the companies Monday night.
The letters were sent to mining company Kaz Resources, defense firm Powerus, cryptocurrency companies World Liberty Financial and American Bitcoin, robotics startup Foundation Future Industries, investment firm 1789 Capital, private aviation company Tag Air, and prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi.
All of the companies either were founded by Mr. Trump and his two adult sons, or list members of the Trump family as advisers, board members, or partial owners. Donald Trump Jr. sits on Polymarket’s advisory board and 1789 Capital, where he’s a partner, has invested in Polymarket. Days before Mr. Trump took office for his second term, Kalshi also announced Trump Jr. would be a strategic adviser.
The Democrats, who are in the minority, lack subpoena power, so Mr. Trump, his children and his companies can’t be forced to answer the questions posed by the senators.
According to recent financial disclosures, the president earned more than a billion dollars from cryptocurrency ventures alone last year, including from his meme coin business and World Liberty Financial, his family’s cryptocurrency firm.
Separately, the senators also asked the Trump Organization in a separate letter if it believes it has “immunity from all audits, civil penalties or federal prosecution” for any crimes that could have occurred before the settlement.
Trump Media and Technology Group, which is majority owned by a trust that lists Mr. Trump as the sole beneficiary and operates the Truth Social platform he uses daily, also received a letter from the Democratic senators.
“The public deserves transparency about the scope of this get-out-of-jail free card for Trump-aligned businesses, and about whether you intend to rely on this settlement as a free pass for any possible violations of the law,” the senators continued in their letter, which also seeks any communications that executives at the companies have had with the Justice Department and White House leading up to or after the settlement was signed.
The settlement was announced months after Mr. Trump and two of his sons and the Trump Organization accused the IRS and Treasury Department of unlawfully allowing a government contractor to leak tax returns to media outlets in 2020.
In a statement, a Justice Department spokesperson said “the IRS routinely provides releases as part of resolving taxpayer reviews and audits. This settlement follows that same standard practice.”
The spokesperson did not provide specific information about which companies are covered by the audit provision, or whether the Trump Organization and Trump family are the only entities covered by that addendum.
Charles De Ketelaere #17 of Belgium celebrates after scoring his team’s second goal during the World Cup Round of 16 match against the United States on Monday in Seattle.
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Alex Grimm/Getty Images
SEATTLE — This time was supposed to be different.
The U.S. men’s national team came into this FIFA World Cup with a lineup full of players with key roles in Europe’s top leagues. They had the name-brand coach — Mauricio Pochettino, of Tottenham, PSG and Chelsea fame. And they had homefield advantage, with every game on U.S. soil for the first time in three decades.
For weeks, the hype seemed like it might be real: The team’s three wins over Paraguay, Australia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were the most ever by a U.S. men’s squad in a World Cup. A new generation of American fans filled stadiums by the tens of thousands and tuned in on TV by the tens of millions.
But in the end, the Americans’ exit was the same as it ever was: Eliminated yet again in the Round of 16 at the hands of a European team — this time, Belgium, by a score of 4-1.
From the moment they stepped onto the Seattle field, the U.S. was outclassed by their opponent, No. 9-ranked Belgium. Countless turnovers and defensive lapses were seized on by the Belgians, who needed only nine minutes to take a 1-0 lead.
Then, once the Americans equalized on a free kick by midfielder Malik Tillman, Belgium scored yet again in barely a minute of play. Belgian forward Charles De Ketelaere scored both his team’s first-half goals.
After halftime, came an embarrassing nail in the coffin that silenced the Seattle sellout crowd for good — a 57th minute roll-in by Hans Vanaken after a slip-up by goalkeeper Matt Freese outside of the penalty area left the goal unguarded. Belgian forward Romelu Lukaku added a stoppage-time goal to seal the final score at 4-1.
Malik Tillman #17 of the United States celebrates scoring his team’s only goal during their World Cup match against Belgium. In what was one of the few bright spots of the game, the U.S. pulled even with Belgium at 1-1. The tie lasted less than two minutes before Belgium scored again.
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“It stinks,” said U.S. midfielder Tyler Adams. “Tonight was not a good performance overall. It’s not what we look to achieve. There [were] a lot of things that we could have done better.”
The U.S. had entered Monday’s game under a cloud of controversy around their striker Folarin Balogun, who was shown a red card in last week’s Round of 32 match against Bosnia-Herzegovina. An automatic one-game suspension was set to sideline Balogun, the Americans’ leading scorer at the World Cup, for Monday’s game.
Then, the day before the game, a FIFA disciplinary panel took the highly unusual step of delaying Balogun’s suspension by a year to allow him to participate. Then, news broke that President Trump had personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to encourage him to review the red card.
The Royal Belgian Football Association said it would protest Balogun’s inclusion in the lineup. But even at full strength, the U.S. were never real contenders in Monday’s game.
U.S. defender and team captain Tim Ream said the controversy swirling around the team had no impact. “We were fully focused on us as a group and as a team and fully focused on the game and not really worrying about what was being said or debated in the outside world.”
Belgium will advance to the quarterfinals for the third time in the past four World Cups, where it will face Spain on Friday in Los Angeles.
Mauricio Pochettino, Head Coach of the United States, walks down the touchline during the Round of 16 World Cup match between the USA and Belgium in Seattle on Monday.
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Carl Recine/Getty Images
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