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Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

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Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#11

Post by prepend »

mullingitover wrote: post #5
John7878781 wrote: post #3

It's hard for me to trust this PDF when there's literally a typo directly under the author's name: "analyitcs"

At the same tiem, lately I've been inserting small typos in my writing just to signal that it's not LLM generated. Nothing is a bigger red flag than a wall of text with perfect grammar and punctuation.

This reduces your credibility. If I was reading, I wouldn’t think “not llm,” I’d think “not detail oriented.” You may want to find some better way that doesn’t make people think less of you.

Perfect grammar and punctuation is par for any publication.

Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#13

Post by valleyer »

philipov wrote: post #6
parpfish wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

typos mean its more likely to have been made by a human.

typos mean it's more likely to have been made by a careless human.

Certainly. But in the current social environment, being seen as (mildly) careless is less bad than being seen as someone who lets an LLM write prose for them.

Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#14

Post by karolinepauls »

John7878781 wrote: post #9
mullingitover wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same tiem, lately I've been inserting small typos in my writing just to signal that it's not LLM generated. Nothing is a bigger red flag than a wall of text with perfect grammar and punctuation.

> Nothing is a bigger red flag than a wall of text with perfect grammar and punctuation. So you're choosing to punish well-written text?

It statrs with "At the same tiem" so it's consistent.

Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#15

Post by John7878781 »

valleyer wrote: post #13
philipov wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

typos mean it's more likely to have been made by a careless human.

Certainly. But in the current social environment, being seen as (mildly) careless is less bad than being seen as someone who lets an LLM write prose for them.

That's kind of sad. I miss being an OG em dash user.

Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#16

Post by LorenPechtel »

I don't understand.

Brokers quite correctly do not count the value of the shares because they never actually see it. But that's not the way insurance works--while dollars flow in and dollars flow out they are not remotely the same dollars. This feels like someone is trying to lie with statistics.

Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#17

Post by digi59404 »

getnormality wrote: post #2

> Conventional accounting measures portray large health insurers such as UnitedHealth Group (UHG) as earning relatively low profit margins because they treat premium dollars that are subsequently paid out in medical claims as revenue. However, these medical claims are pass-through costs, not income retained by the insurer. I don't understand this claim. Doesn't every business have costs to make its goods and services…

Insurance companies often have a parent company. That parent company owns healthcare providers and pharmacies.

So it goes something like this

United Health Group -> United Health Insurance United Health Group -> Sunshine Hospital.

United Health Insurance has a profit cap, it’s a % of revenue. Sunshine Hospital has no cap. So Sunshine Hospital charged United Health Insurance X$ and that profit rolls up to United Health Group.

Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#18

Post by yepyeppers »

trjordan wrote: post #8
getnormality wrote: post #2

> Conventional accounting measures portray large health insurers such as UnitedHealth Group (UHG) as earning relatively low profit margins because they treat premium dollars that are subsequently paid out in medical claims as revenue. However, these medical claims are pass-through costs, not income retained by the insurer. I don't understand this claim. Doesn't every business have costs to make its goods and services…

An intuitive explanation is that financial products are, approximately, buying and selling as part of the same transaction. You can't separate the "selling premiums" part from the "paying out claims" part. This is true of life insurance, investment firms, and banks. It's also true of marketplaces that connect buyers and sellers, like Etsy. Groceries stores are buying from suppliers and selling to consumers, but those…

This is contrary to GAAP and operationally false. An insurer takes on the risks including the health of the insured pool and cost changes during the covered period. An insurance BROKER or AGENCY only books commissions as revenue, but an INSURER books premium as revenue. Similarly a stock BROKER or AGENT is only acting as an agent and isn’t a party to the actual transaction they execute. Similarly for platforms, auctioneers, or other agents.

Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#19

Post by Mistletoe »

mullingitover wrote: post #5
John7878781 wrote: post #3

It's hard for me to trust this PDF when there's literally a typo directly under the author's name: "analyitcs"

At the same tiem, lately I've been inserting small typos in my writing just to signal that it's not LLM generated. Nothing is a bigger red flag than a wall of text with perfect grammar and punctuation.

I really don’t think you should do this. It just makes you look dumb, not authentic. There is a lot more to LLM writing than perfect grammar and punctuation that gives it away.

Re: Study reveals UnitedHealth's profit margins four times what it claimed [pdf]

#20

Post by mikeryan »

getnormality wrote: post #2

> Conventional accounting measures portray large health insurers such as UnitedHealth Group (UHG) as earning relatively low profit margins because they treat premium dollars that are subsequently paid out in medical claims as revenue. However, these medical claims are pass-through costs, not income retained by the insurer. I don't understand this claim. Doesn't every business have costs to make its goods and services…

I just scanned the doc but I think your question is the core argument of the doc. It explicitly says that United is using standard accounting practices and proposes the “pass through” mechanism as a “better” metric.

Based on the source I, personally, don’t find it to be a credible argument

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