Health Insurance Company Stock Buybacks

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to continue to shed light on the egregious, unethical, and deliberately unscrupulous practices of our health insurance companies that deny patients care and rip off the American taxpayer.

I have spent 35 years taking care of patients. The amount of treachery in the healthcare industry at this point in time continues to boggle my mind.

A few months ago, the House Ways and Means Committee hosted representatives from the Nation's leading insurers. There was bipartisan outrage against what they are doing to the American patient and the American taxpayer.

Healthcare is no longer affordable and, in large part, it is due to the ever-increasing, insurance-company-driven middleman apparatus. These megacorporations are squeezing every last penny out of patients and physicians, all in the name of profit.

Today, I want to discuss an interesting event, how the American taxpayer is subsidizing stock buybacks by the United States' largest health insurers. A buyback is when companies, flush with cash, our cash, are buying back their own stock.

In 2025, the seven largest for-profit health insurance conglomerates took in nearly $1.7 trillion in total in revenues, yielding over $50 billion in profits. The true number was much higher because of the way they hide their finances.

Regardless, that was a great year for these companies, which receive record sums of American taxpayer dollars. In fact, UnitedHealthcare now gets more than three-quarters of its revenues from government programs, even though it covers almost twice as many people in its commercial plans. No wonder they lobbied so hard to keep the ObamaCare subsidies in place. They love that taxpayer Federal dollar.

What is even more sinister is the amount of money that these giants have spent on their own stock buybacks. Instead of using money to lower the cost of care for patients across the country, they pump it in to boost up their own profits.

In 2015, the top seven companies spent more than $137 billion buying back stock shares. United has more than 50 percent of these buybacks, and guess who makes the most profit? United does. They are flush with cash--so flush, they even own a bank.

Why is this important? As they buy back their own stock, it makes their stock more expensive, drives up earnings, and, guess what, makes their executives richer because of their compensation plans. It is all at the expense of patients.

Further, they have become more diversified, vertically integrated conglomerates that have swallowed up nearly every part of our healthcare system. Mark Cuban and I agree completely. The middleman is destroying American medicine.

As it stands, we are now allowing an oligopoly to take nearly $2 trillion from the American people, while making it more expensive and harder to access healthcare.

As I have said before, if it were up to me, I would break up these giants and eliminate for-profit health insurance.

Medically necessarily healthcare cannot be treated the same way as other customer goods and services. I believe that patients must take responsibility for their well-being, but I also think it is a marked way that we incentivize making people healthier. I also understand that people cannot afford healthcare right now.

We are all impacted by emergencies and illnesses at some point in our life, even the most robust and healthy individuals. A visit to the emergency room should not be a life-altering financial event.

Therapy for cancer we know how to treat should not be a death sentence because of the cost of care. Access to a lifesaving medicine that sustains your life should not bankrupt you.

I am an equal opportunity offender. I will go after any entity in the healthcare industry regardless that is causing the cost of healthcare to be so expensive. These greedy and egregious practices of our health insurance companies top the list.

Countless patients are denied medically necessary care every single day because these companies want to save a buck. They want to save a buck to buy back their stock and increase their profits.

Make no mistake, the health insurance industry is the most powerful one in Washington, D.C. But fortunately, the American people are waking up. They are waking up to the nonsense and demanding change.

I have dedicated my entire life to taking care of patients. I am happy to take on this fight. We cannot deal with this anymore. The insurance industry is destroying American healthcare.

I will not rest until this job is finished and we break up these insurance company monopolies.

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