UnitedHealth to Buy Home-Health Firm LHC Group for $5.4 Billion

[dalton99a]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/unitedhealth-to-buy-home-health-firm-lhc-group-for-5-4-billion-11648550701

UnitedHealth to Buy Home-Health Firm LHC Group for $5.4 Billion
The deal marks the latest foray by a managed-care company into a category said to promise lower costs than hospitals and nursing homes
By Anna Wilde Mathews
Updated Mar. 29, 2022 9:55 am ET

UnitedHealth Group Inc. has agreed to buy LHC Group Inc. for about $5.4 billion in cash, in the latest tie-up linking a managed-care company to the home-health business.

The acquisition by UnitedHealth’s Optum health-services arm, which was announced Tuesday, will add one of the country’s largest home-health firms to a portfolio that already includes doctor groups, clinics and surgery centers, as well as some home-based services.

Health insurers such as UnitedHealth’s UnitedHealthcare, the largest in the U.S., aim to bolster the role of home health as a lower-cost alternative to nursing homes and a tool to reduce hospital stays, particularly among the Medicare population, which represents a lucrative growth engine for the industry. Managed-care companies sell private plans called Medicare Advantage under the federal program.

Humana Inc., UnitedHealthcare’s biggest rival in the Medicare business, last year completed its acquisition of Kindred at Home, spending about $5.7 billion for the 60% share of the company it didn’t yet own. Humana says it is now the largest home-health provider in the U.S.

[Auggie]

1. Chasing aging Boomers for their money ...

designed to maximize profits while bleeding families dry, just like for-profit health insurance,

[Ron Green]

2. One risk pool is a health care system. Multiple risk pools is an investment scheme.

We have enough investment schemes in this country; we need a health care system.

Pushing “assets” around in a world where people need real care is criminal.

[leftstreet]

3. +1

[Hoyt]

4. Home Health is infinitely better than faciity care, financially and in terms of quality of life.