UnitedHealth Group CEO: 'We're Mindful Of The Current Moment & The Debates About Affordability'

Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Neal, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. Every day, people count on our company not just to help them when they're sick, but to help them when they're healthy as well, in every stage of their lives. And we take that responsibility seriously. Like all of you, we are dissatisfied with the status quo and know we must all do better. And so we are committed to doing exactly that. And that is in part why I've returned to UnitedHealth Group as Chief Executive. Our mission as a company is to help people live healthier lives and help the health system work better for everyone. Better outcomes, better experiences, lower costs. Achieving these goals means being candid about why the cost of health care continues to rise. The cost of health insurance fundamentally reflects the cost of health care itself. It is more an effect than a cause. If insurance costs are going up even as we compete aggressively against other companies, it signals rising costs of health services and drugs and/or rising volumes of care activity. And it is a fact: hospital and drug spending has soared at three times the rate of inflation since before 2000. We limit these pressures as much as possible. We use negotiations, data insights, better care coordination to moderate the cost of growth, improve outcomes, and protect access. And we focus on preventative care so people get care before a condition worsens or before becoming sick at all. Insurance is the only sector in health care incentivized to keep the cost of care as low as possible while still seeking high-quality health outcomes for people and helping them avoid getting sick in the first place. And it's a virtuous circle. Generally, the healthier people are, the fewer health resources they need. We are innovating to make high-quality health care easier to find, simpler to navigate, and most importantly, more accessible and affordable. Last year alone, we negotiated nearly $300 billion in savings for our customers. Without those efforts, recent premium increases would easily have been twice as high. Nearly 90% of our premiums go to direct medical care, including in Affordable Care Act plans. Our enterprise margins are only around 5%, with Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA margins being far less than that. Additionally, we have made notable progress in areas such as value-based care, which incentivizes better care and health outcomes and simplifies the experience. And in Medicare Advantage, which provides lower total costs than traditional Medicare with more benefits and lower overall cost to seniors, a majority of whom choose it each year. We've introduced innovative health plans that offer people the information they need upfront, enabling them to comparison shop for care. These plans often have no deductibles and no co-insurance, and members pay an average of more than 50% less in out-of-pocket costs compared to traditional plans. And employers offering these transparent plans are also seeing lower total costs. We're committed to extending these consumer-centric features wherever we can, so consumers have more choice, more control, more transparency and certainty, and more value overall. We're mindful of the current moment and the debates about affordability in Congress and throughout the country. And we appreciate the current bipartisan talks focused on ideas around affordability, transparency, and a possible short-term tax credit extension. Because we want to continue to be part of the solution with respect to ACA individual plans, we will voluntarily eliminate and rebate our profits this year for these coverages. I know there are aspects of our products and services that are still too confusing and complicated for people. We are intensely focused on setting a new standard of transparency, simplicity, and ongoing improvement as we continue taking costs out of the system and make health care more affordable. In addition, we provided policy ideas in our written testimony intended to lower premiums, address rising health costs, and better align what we pay for health care with the rest of the world. I look forward to our discussion today about what more can be done to improve affordability and expand the availability of quality care. Thank you.