United Healthcare Worked With Notorious Fraudster To Secure Controversial Merger
Right before the CEO of United health was shot and killed, one of the greediest corporate takeovers was about to take place. United Health was determined to expand its reach to monopolistic levels by merging with one of its largest competitors.
In 2023 they merged with LHC group, a massive competitor, for over $5 billion.
In 2024, they proposed merging with Amedisys, their largest competitor in hospice and home health care.
The department of justice saw a pattern. United health was strategically absorbing its top competitors and ballooning out of control.
In response, the US government sued to stop the merger. The Sherman Antitrust Act allows our government to step in and stop mergers if they believe that a merger will cause a monopoly.
Desperately trying to make the merger work, United health proposed a solution. They suggested that if they divest some of the facilities acquired in the merger to another company, Vital Caring, then the merger should be allowed to go through.
United Health would not absorb Amedisys entirely, but some of the assets would be split to Vital Caring, thereby avoiding the establishment of monopoly power.
The Department of Justice refused this proposal because VitalCaring would be unlikely to replace the competition that would be lost by UnitedHealth’s acquisition of Amedisys, or eliminate the threat to competition the acquisition poses. Additionally, the government emphasized that VitalCaring is an unproven company with only three years of operational experience, poor financial performance, and potentially “catastrophic legal exposure”.
The “catastrophic legal exposure” the DOJ referred to stems from the notorious health care scam artist, April Anthony, CEO of Vital Caring.
“Catastrophic Legal Exposure”
April Anthony is a goliath executive in healthcare who made over $700 million with a company she founded in 1998 called “Encompass.”
She later sold Emcompass but stayed on as CFO. While holding a legal and fiduciary duty to to Encompass, she secretly plotted behind shareholders backs to essentially buy her company back.
What ensued was a complex web of lies, deceipt, fraud, backstabbing, and chicanery to break down Encompass from the inside and give Anthony absolute power.
When Encompass found out, they sued April and her new company VitalCaring, which was built on a foundation of fraud and deception.
The judge in the case was aghast at the “damning record presented at trial,” and ordered that VitalCaring place 43% of its profits into Trust for Encompass Health.
For any business leader with common sense, engaging with Anthony on any professional level is, at best, highly questionable. For United Health, however, Anthony’s willingness to engage in questionable practices became the crucial factor they needed to persuade the DOJ to approve their merger, paving the way for their monopoly.
The proposal to divest certain assets to a company previously sued for fraud and obligated to surrender nearly half of its profits in restitution is a desperate and feeble attempt to push through United Health’s monopolistic merger.
Anthony’s story—how she still felt compelled to cheat to get ahead even after amassing nearly a billion dollars—underscores the pervasive greed at the executive level. This, coupled with United Health’s readiness to collaborate with her to advance their own insatiable ambitions, highlights the extent to which massive corporations are willing to go to consolidate power.
ONGOING GREED AT UNITED HEALTH
United Health has completely lost its way. Far from being consumer-focused, it exhibits an insatiable drive to grow and expand at any cost.
As a recent example of United’s rampant greed, just this month the company had to pay their employees $69 million to make up for $7 billion in retirement funds lost.
The company invested their employees 401(k)s into funds at Wells Fargo that consistently underperformed and lost money for over five years.
A lawsuit to recover the lost profits alleged that CFO John Rex intentionally kept the money in underperforming funds because of United’s close relationship with Wells Fargo, who is one of their largest financiers. As CFO, Rex is under a legal and fiduciary duty to prudently invest 401(k) money in stocks that are reasonably expected to perform well. He breached this duty by failing to withdraw employee funds from an atrociously underperforming Wells Fargo fund. It cost employees $7 billion.