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” I’m going to continue to work to bust this up”, Rep. At a Capitol Hill hearing on Wednesday, Republican Representative for Atlanta (R-GA ) addressed UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty.
As Sen. Roger Marshall ( R- KS) just said,” United Health Group is the Standard Oil of Healthcare”.  , It has bought almost every aspect of the medical system. In January 2021, it bought one of the biggest health payment systems, Change Healthcare, for$ 13 billion. In February, it was hit by a attack that exposed thousands of individual patient information and delayed payouts for doctors, hospitals, and independent pharmacy.
So, on Wednesday, the House and Senate held hearings on these failures of UnitedHealth Group ( UHG ) with the company’s CEO Andrew Witty.
From Pharmacy Benefit Managers ( PBMs) to Payday Loans to AARP, a” Health Care Leviathan”
House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers , ( R- WA ) examined UHG’s consolidation and size:” Under the United Health Group umbrella resides a health insurance company with more than 40 million covered lives across Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial markets. A PBM that managed to manage$ 159 billion in medicine spending as a supplier group that owns around one in every 12 physicians in the US, a bank that provides payday loans to customers. That’s just a few of the contractors under your purview”.
They even have a$ 1 billion partnership with AARP. Rep. Debbie Lesko ( R- AZ ) asked about UHG’s financial arrangement with AARP,” Does, I have gotten letters on this, this is why I’m asking it. Does AARP receive a salary on your enrollment in the UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage Plan?  , Do they get a slice of it”? Despite public documents that show UnitedHealth has paid AARP billion, Witty claimed he had not been informed of the details of his company’s economic arrangement with AARP.
Sen. Ron Wyden , of Oregon, who helped complete Obamacare which is responsible for UHG’s large progress, even blasted UHG:” I’ll put things in perspective. Last month, UHG generated$ 324 billion in revenue, making it the 5th largest business in the U. S. Overall, the firm touches 152 million people across all lines of business – insurance, doctors practice, home health, and store. UHG is the largest seller of physician practices and has made dozens of other health care companies with its earnings. This company is a heath care leviathan”.
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana asked,  ,” Is the strong part of United very powerful because it is into anything, and messing up United messes up everybody”? He added,  ,” My point is, the size of United becomes … almost a too big to fail, and sure, because if it fails, it’s going to bring down far more than it ordinarily would”.
” Maybe a Third” of Americans Are Affected by the Breach
Witty claimed on Wednesday that “perhaps a third” of the country’s personal data and health records were hacked as a result of the attack. He claimed that the company’s servers did n’t support multifactor authentication.
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming , said,” Hospitals take cybersecurity very seriously. You know, Change Healthcare’s commitment to cybersecurity it’s not as clear”.
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina , held up a copy of the book Hacking for Dummies and said,” This is some basic stuff that was missed”.
” It’s Like You All Can’t Figure This Out”  ,
Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn , said her office has been bombarded with calls from hospitals, pharmacies, and doctors hit by UnitedHealth cyberattack. There is a backlog that many of our providers and hospitals have from nine weeks of being unable to enter and make these claims, she said.
” Every day they call to get an update. Every single day they’re calling. And they get the runaround every single day, repeatedly”, she said. ” It’s like you all ca n’t figure this out”.
” A small, independent, private hospital in West Tennessee. They have diligently submitted all of their claims, but they have a backlog of Medicare claims that is equivalent to 30 days ‘ worth of revenue, and they are patiently waiting for these things to be transmitted to Medicare, according to Blackburn. ” You all have had these missteps,” says the author.
Increased Consolidation, Higher Prices, Less Access for Patients
Rep. John Joyce of Pennsylvania expressed concern that incidents like this will become more frequent as we see more and more consolidation in healthcare. Consolidation has already caused prices to go up and lessen access to patient care. And now there is yet another cost for both doctors and patients.
Rep. Earl L.” Buddy” Carter of Georgia slammed United Health, which has gobbled up physician practices, surgery centers, pharmacy benefit managers, and more, saying:” You are the largest for- profit domestic health insurance company in the country as has been pointed out with over 10, 000 physicians and owning your own pharmacy and one of the of the largest PBMs in the country. Can you explain how your business can justify these unmistakable conflicts of interest?
” Are you aware that there are over 300 pharmacies, independent retail pharmacies that went out of business last year”? Carter asked Witty.
Let me reassure you that I’ll continue to work to defuse this, Carter said. ” This vertical integration that exists in healthcare in general needs to end.”
