The company said its startlingly poor performance in the first quarter was a result of “heightened care activity” in its insurance business—more people needing more care than expected. When UnitedHealth announced those results in mid-April, it sharply reduced its expected profits for the year. Now, with the announcement of Witty stepping down, the company has withdrawn any guidance for 2025 because, it says, the trend of more patients needing more care is continuing. UnitedHealth has grown strongly for years but apparently doesn’t anticipate growing at all in 2025; the company said it “expects to return to growth in 2026.”
It’s a stunning turnaround for the largest company in the largest sector of the largest economy in the world. United Health is currently No. 4 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest companies in America by revenue, and No. 8 on the Fortune Global 500.
The big question now is whether UnitedHealth’s problems reflect trends in the industry, as its unmatched size and diversity might suggest, or whether the problems are unique to the company, which would likely batter its stock even more.
