UnitedHealth posted a better-than-expected profit in the final quarter of 2024, but revenue fell short as challenges like Medicare funding cuts and a Medicaid enrollment drop hurt.
Shares of the health care giant slid early Thursday after it released its first financial report since the brazen shooting of one of its executives outside a New York City hotel touched a national nerve and brought to the surface American frustration over health care access.
UnitedHealth earned $5.5 billion in the quarter, as adjusted results totaled $6.81 per share. The company’s revenue climbed about 7% to $100.8 billion.
Analysts expected earnings of $6.73 per share in the fourth quarter on $101.6 billion in revenue, according to the data firm FactSet.
UnitedHealth operates the nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, which covers more than 49 million people in the United States. It also operates a large pharmacy benefit manager that runs prescription drug coverage and a growing business that delivers care and provides technical support.
UnitedHealth’s Medicaid enrollment tumbled by about 400,000 people compared with the previous year’s quarter as states went through a lengthy process to determine who was still eligible for the government program after the COVID-19 pandemic.
There was an increase in prescriptions for expensive specialty drugs and other cost pressures, the company reported, pushing net income down slightly to $5.54 billion in the quarter.
UnitedHealth’s full-year profit sank about 36% to $14.4 billion.
UnitedHealth, based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, surprised Wall Street early last year with soaring medical costs in the final quarter of 2023. Weeks later, the company’s Change Healthcare business was hit with a massive cyberattack that wound up costing it more than $1 billion.
Then in early December, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot as he walked to the company’s annual investor meeting in mid-town Manhattan. A 26-year-old suspect, Luigi Mangione, faces federal and state charges in connection with Thompson’s death.
Prosecutors have said Mangione, who was not a UnitedHealthcare customer, was carrying a notebook expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and especially wealthy executives when he was arrested.
The shooting gave rise to an outpouring of grievances about insurance companies. A survey conducted a few weeks after the shooting found that most Americans believe health insurance profits or coverage denials bear some responsibility for Thompson’s death.
Shares of UnitedHealth, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, sank after Thompson’s shooting and fell about 4% on the year.
The stock had rallied so far in 2025 before falling 3% to $525 in premarket trading Thursday.
