UnitedHealth's headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Photo: Mike Bradley/Bloomberg
UnitedHealth Group has stepped up its lobbying efforts targeting the Trump administration as it seeks to rebound from numerous lawsuits and regulatory issues that have caused its market value to decline by 40% since April.
The company’s disclosures show that it spent $7.7 million on lobbying during the first half of 2025,which is about twice what it spent during the same period last year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Most of this effort was directed at officials with close ties to the administration, such as Brian Ballard, a top fundraiser for the president, and Jesse Panuccio, who was a senior Justice Department official in Trump’s first term.
Since May, CEO Stephen Hemsley and other top company leaders have met with officials at the Department of Justice, the White House and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, although not directly with Trump. Discussion topics included ongoing federal probes into the company, Medicare billing and supplemental benefits policies, according to the paper.
The company arranged a meeting with senior Justice Department officials, including the attorney general’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, after it was reported in May that the company faced a criminal investigation into its Medicare business. That meeting focused on probes of the company, people familiar with the meeting said. Such meetings are unusual for a company facing an early stage criminal investigation, former prosecutors told the Journal.
Although Hemsley recently met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to discuss Medicare and other issues, government investigations were not discussed, a White House official said. The CEO also had dinner this summer with Chris Klomp, who oversees Medicare, to discuss Medicare-plan billing policies and supplemental benefits, people familiar with the meeting said.
White House spokesperson Kush Desaid said the lobbying campaign is standard procedure. “The administration routinely meets with insurers to deliver on the president’s mandate of improving health care and lowering costs for everyday Americans,” he said.
UnitedHealth is still seeking to recover from a series of setbacks that include a massive cyberattack, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and Biden administration changes to Medicare-billing rules that have affected its profitability/ UnitedHealth generated more than $100 billion in revenue in 2023 from Medicare Advantage plans.
The company defended increasing its lobbying efforts and budget. “Public policy shapes health care across America, and it’s our responsibility to engage with the administration and Congress at all levels to improve patient access and affordability,” a spokesperson told the Journal.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.