Investor Group Calls for UnitedHealth to Report Public Health Costs of Denied Access to Treatment

A group of UnitedHealth Group Inc. shareholders, including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, announced on Wednesday that they filed a proposal for the 2025 proxy season calling for the health care provider to report on the public health and macroeconomic risks of delaying or denying health care services to patients.

“Specifically, shareholders recommend that the report evaluate how company practices impact access to healthcare and patient outcomes, including analyses of how often prior authorization requirements or denials of coverage lead to delay or abandonment of medical treatment, and serious adverse events for patients,” wrote the ICCR in a statement.

The investor coalition of more than 300 institutional investors with a collective $4 trillion in invested capital is specifically calling for the company to report these risks as a result of the “company’s practices that limit or delay access to healthcare.” The ICCR, in a statement, wrote that UHG’s policies may boost short-term revenues but provide long-term risks, which could threaten investor portfolios.

“Overall performance of financial markets determines 75-94% of portfolio returns to broadly diversified investors,” an ICCR report on UnitedHealthcare Group macro-economic risks stated. “As a result, the health of the economy is key to the long-term performance of their portfolios. UHG, the largest health insurer in the U.S. and largest employer of physicians, influences healthcare outcomes through its impacts on healthcare and treatment accessibility and affordability. Given UHG’s size and broad reach—‘more than 5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product flows through the company’s systems every day’—shareholders fear UHG’s practices may impair the value of their portfolios”.

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The investor group is concerned about the effects on the financial markets of UnitedHealth’s practices, including;

Authorization requirements that result in delayed or avoided medical care;

Denying patient care to increase profit; and

Increasing premiums and out-of-pocket costs, which hinders economic growth.

UnitedHealth Group “has been in the media and legislative spotlight for some time given its market dominance, aggressive marketing of Medicare Advantage and questionable use of [artificial intelligence] algorithms to deny care to patients,” said the proposal’s lead filer, Timnit Ghermay of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary congregation, in a statement.

The December 2024 murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson put an additional spotlight on the company, one of the companies that has denied the most insurance claims.

“As the tragic murder of [United Healthcare’s] Brian Thompson made evident, public outrage over the exorbitant costs and restricted access to health care has reached a dangerous level in our country,” Ghermay continued. “Our proposal suggests some introspection … that will help the company and all its stakeholders thrive.”

In the shareholder proposal, the ICCR noted that patients often have to cover health care costs by taking on credit card debt, cutting back on discretionary spending and draining their retirement savings, actions which negatively impact the economy.

“Worsening health outcomes, loss of wages or underemployment, low credit ratings due to inability to pay medical debt, and the associated inability to attain stable housing, may all lead to depressed worker productivity, reduced consumer spending power, and greater reliance on public assistance programs which are clear drags on the broader economy,” according to the shareholder proposal.