I presume that hundreds of billions in profit refers to money extracted over multiple years, not per year, there’s no other way it makes sense.

>and most of that is probably not even insurance related since a large portion comes from UNH's enormous healthcare provider business

Isn’t that part of the problem? There are interdependent layers in the health care industry each designed to extract as much wealth as possible.

In the case of UNH, how much money flows as an expense on the insurance side into income on the provider side? Isn’t the relative profitability between these two sides an accounting trick?

It seems strange to me that you’re saying doctor salaries are too high, yet the majority of profits come from their provider business, which is where doctor salaries would be tracked as an expense, right?

“Less than $50b/yr profit” as if that’s a small amount.

I agree that retail investors would not want to be shareholders of insurance companies, but that’s mostly because I think retail investors are just chum in the water for institutional investors and prop trading firms to feast on.

If it’s so stupid to be a health insurance shareholder, then where does that leave their senior leadership and major shareholders? They’re morons for not immediately divesting and moving into fast food, right?

> It seems strange to me that you’re saying doctor salaries are too high

I am not. If anything, I think doctors are underpaid. I would not want to spend my 20s and early 30s in that grind, there are easier ways to earn that much money.

> In the case of UNH, how much money flows as an expense on the insurance side into income on the provider side? Isn’t the relative profitability between these two sides an accounting trick?

UNH’s overall profit margins being much less than pure provider groups shows this cannot be a large effect.

>“Less than $50b/yr profit” as if that’s a small amount.

Nominal profit is a meaningless figure when analyzing the pricing power and/or viability of a business. Profit margin is the only figure to look at here, and there are 6 other publicly listed insurers to benchmark to. Additionally, UNH competes with many large non profit organizations, selling essentially fungible services.

> If it’s so stupid to be a health insurance shareholder, then where does that leave their senior leadership and major shareholders? They’re morons for not immediately divesting and moving into fast food, right?

Depends which fast food. Most are probably even shittier businesses, but if it’s McDonalds which has a decent real estate business, then it might be worth moving. However, the execs would earn far more if they were at similar places in other organizations with higher profit margins, like tech/pharma/finance/oil.

Obviously, if you can’t get a job at Alphabet/Eli Lilly/JPM/etc, then you stay with insurance and earn whatever you can there.