[lotsofpulp]

Then they must suck at collusion, given they can't even beat a risk-less broad market index.

SP500 10 year annual return: 14.6%

UNH: 13.59% Elevance: 10.79% Cigna 9.42% Humana: 6.1% CVS: 0.55% Molina: 9.42% Centene: 0.9%

Or, the likelier explanation, is that health insurance prices are highly regulated and have to get their prices approved by a government official(s), and B) they don't have a lot of pricing power due to the competition and they are not colluding.

[datadrivenangel]

Executives earn more based on revenues and thus prices and not stock returns.

[lotsofpulp]

See almost any of the proxy filings and you will see much of the compensation is based on hitting targets other than just revenue, and most of the compensation itself is equity:

https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/content/dam/UHG/PDF/invest...

https://s202.q4cdn.com/665319960/files/doc_financials/2025/a...

The executives seem to have a heavy interest in equity returns.