Quote (ofthevoid @ Dec 13 2024 06:42am)
Since CEO murder, UNH stock is down close to 15% over the last week or so, shedding roughly 50 billion in market cap. Reason obviously is the negative PR. The methods are obviously bad but if the left draws attention to some of these issues it could mean problems for the healthcare industry down the line. Kind of hard to tout expanding margins or higher YoY profits on a earnings call when at least in part those are coming at the expense of higher premiums or higher claim denial. My own family health insurance went up close to 40% this year, this type of spike doesn't make sense and can't really be simply explained by higher claims or inflation, so what gives?
Long term, i don't think this has a huge impact but highlights reputational risks with some of these businesses. As a free market believer i think businesses should generally be free and have the free market dictate pricing and whatnot, but certain industries IMO you need to be careful. Healthcare insurance is a huge one where instead of it being profit maximizing it may need to morph into more of a utility-esque low growth cash cow. IMO it doesn't make sense for an UNH to be up 110% over the last 5 years, it's not high tech growth, it's a insurance company.
Rare agreement.