UnitedHealthcare 'Pushing' Boundaries of Medicare Fraud, Republican Says [View all]

Source: Newsweek

Published Mar 24, 2025 at 2:32 PM EDT | Updated Mar 24, 2025 at 7:04 PM EDT


A Republican lawmaker has gone after UnitedHealthcare over its Medicare plan, calling the insurance company the "worst offender" in the industry. North Carolina Republican Representative Greg Murphy on Fox Business on Monday discussed Republicans' efforts to reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud, saying that UnitedHealthcare was "pushing" the boundaries of Medicare fraud. Newsweek spoke with experts about Murphy's comments.

Why It Matters

More than 32 million Americans were covered by Medicare Advantage plans last year, accounting for roughly half of the Medicare-eligible population. UnitedHealthcare has received backlash in the months following the murder of CEO Brian Thompson in New York City. Since then, there's been an outpouring of anger towards the insurance industry based on claim denials.

House Republicans have also proposed a budget that would cut spending by $880 billion in the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid.

What To Know

Murphy said there's bipartisan support to reform Medicare based on the actions of insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare. "I'll pick out the worst offender is United which is literally charging $1,000 more per enrollee than anyone else and they upcode them," Murphy said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo. "You take a stone-cold healthy person and they suddenly have 15 things wrong with them, then on the backside, they don't pay the people they should." Murphy called this type of behavior by insurers a "scam."

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/united-healthcare-pushing-boundaries-medicare-fraud-republican-2049688