Business Strategy and Outlook
| Julie Utterback, CFA |Under one roof, UnitedHealth combines a top-tier health insurer (UnitedHealthcare), pharmacy benefit manager (OptumRx), provider (OptumHealth), and health analytics franchise (OptumInsight). The company's integrated strategy has resulted in some of the best returns in the industry in recent years and has been copied at least in part by the late 2018 mergers at CVS Health (added Aetna's insurance assets to its existing retail stores and market-leading PBM) and Cigna (added Express Scripts PBM assets to its existing insurance operations). Outside of substantial regulator-led reforms, we think these vertically integrated organizations could help bend the healthcare cost curve in the U.S., and UnitedHealth should be one of the key leaders of that charge going forward.