UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE: UNH) has gone from defensive market darling to one of 2025’s most controversial blue‑chips. As of 29 November 2025, the stock is trading around $330 per share, down roughly 45% over the past year, even after a modest rebound in late November. [1]
At the same time, the company is raising its full‑year earnings outlook, reshaping its Medicare Advantage business, facing a high‑profile U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation and adding former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb to its board. [2]
This overview pulls together the main UNH headlines investors are digesting as of 29 November 2025, and what they may mean for the stock.
Where UNH Stock Stands Today
- Last close: $329.77 on 28 November 2025
- After‑hours quote: about $329.50
- Recent trend: shares have climbed from the low $300s over the past week but remain deeply below their 2024–early 2025 highs. [3]
According to recent analysis, UnitedHealth’s share price is still down around 40–45% over the last 12 months, after a year of regulatory shocks, cost overruns and reputational hits. [4]
MarketBeat data shows institutional investors still hold roughly 88% of the float, while the stock trades at a price‑to‑earnings (P/E) ratio near 17, with a 52‑week range of about $234.60–$622.83. [5]
Earnings Snapshot: Strong Revenue, Squeezed Margins
UnitedHealth’s latest numbers are a study in contrast: top‑line growth remains robust, but profit margins have been hammered.
In its third‑quarter 2025 results, the company reported: [6]
- Revenue: $113.2 billion, up 12% year‑over‑year
- Earnings from operations: $4.3 billion, about 50% lower than Q3 2024
- GAAP EPS: $2.59; adjusted EPS: $2.92
- Medical care ratio (MCR): 89.9%, up sharply from 85.2% a year earlier
- Net margin: roughly 2.1%
UnitedHealthcare, the core insurance arm, saw revenue jump 16% to $87.1 billion, but its operating margin collapsed from 5.6% to 2.1%, which management blamed on elevated medical cost trends, Medicare funding cuts and changes in Medicare Part D under the Inflation Reduction Act. [7]
Despite the margin hit, management raised full‑year 2025 guidance to at least $14.90 in GAAP EPS and $16.25 in adjusted EPS, signalling confidence in a profitability rebound from 2026 onward. [8]
Cash flow remains a bright spot: $5.9 billion in operating cash flow in Q3, about 2.3 times net income, supporting dividends and future capital returns. [9]
DOJ Investigation: The Biggest Overhang on UNH Stock
The single most important narrative around UnitedHealth in 2025 has been the DOJ’s scrutiny of its Medicare Advantage billing practices.
How the probe started
In February, reporting in national media revealed that the DOJ had opened a civil fraud investigation into whether UnitedHealth used diagnosis coding to inflate payments under Medicare Advantage. [10]
Analyses cited in those reports alleged that some diagnoses added by UnitedHealth generated billions of dollars in extra Medicare payments, including an estimated $8.7 billion in 2021 alone, for conditions patients were never treated for. [11]
UnitedHealth’s response
On 24 July 2025, UnitedHealth confirmed it is under criminal and civil investigation and said it had proactively contacted the DOJ after seeing the media reports. The company says it is cooperating fully, insists it has “full confidence” in its practices and points to independent CMS audits that found its coding accuracy “among the most accurate in the industry.” [12]
UnitedHealth also highlights a separate, long‑running Medicare Advantage case where a court‑appointed special master recently recommended dismissal, finding insufficient evidence of fraud in earlier allegations about overpayments. [13]
Market sentiment
The stock sold off sharply when the company confirmed the DOJ probe in July, with shares dropping about 7–10% in a single session. [14]
More recently, social‑media and options‑market chatter—tracked by QuiverQuant—shows deep investor anxiety about potential penalties, balanced by a minority arguing that the sell‑off has overshot fundamentals, especially after UnitedHealth raised its earnings outlook. [15]
For now, the investigation’s outcome remains a major unknown—and the key risk that many investors say justifies UNH’s lower valuation multiple.
Medicare Advantage Shake‑Up: Dropping a Million Seniors
While regulators circle, UnitedHealth is also rebuilding its core Medicare business in ways that directly affect millions of seniors.
Cutting 1 million Medicare Advantage members
On its Q3 call and in follow‑up interviews, UnitedHealth said it expects Medicare Advantage enrollment to shrink by about 1 million members in 2026, up from a prior 600,000 contraction estimate. [16]
Executives described this as a conscious reset: the company is exiting unprofitable products, tightening networks and reducing benefits in response to higher medical costs and reduced government funding, aiming to rebuild margins over growth. [17]
An opinion piece in MarketWatch framed the move far more bluntly, arguing that UnitedHealth is “dropping a million seniors” to “restore its swagger,” while raising Affordable Care Act (ACA) premiums by roughly 26% and leaning on its Optum physician network to regain profitability. [18]
Local network changes and access concerns
The shake‑up isn’t just abstract actuarial math. In New York’s Hudson Valley, Optum Health—a UnitedHealth subsidiary and one of the region’s largest physician groups—plans to leave the networks of several low‑cost plans, including Medicare Advantage and Medicaid offerings, beginning January 2026. [19]
Local officials and patient advocates warn that this kind of vertical integration—where an insurer owns a major physician network and can decide which plans those doctors will accept—could reduce competition and make care more expensive or harder to access for lower‑income patients. [20]
Whether investors see this as ruthless efficiency or reputational self‑harm depends a lot on their view of healthcare policy, not just spreadsheets.
Washington Wild Cards: Policy Changes Beyond the DOJ
Alongside the investigation, the policy backdrop for UnitedHealth is changing rapidly.
A recent Axios report details a Trump‑administration proposal to overhaul Medicare Advantage “star ratings”, scrapping several quality measures while also reconsidering risk‑adjustment rules that determine how much insurers are paid for sicker members. [21]
The plan could lower some plan ratings but paradoxically raise others, depending on which metrics are dropped, and it may also tighten scrutiny on “upcoding”—the same practice at the centre of the DOJ probe. [22]
Separately, there are ongoing debates over extending enhanced ACA subsidies, which have supported enrollment in individual exchanges and boosted revenue for insurers like UnitedHealth. Press reports suggest the White House is exploring ways to keep subsidies or a similar mechanism in place, a potential tailwind if it materialises. [23]
In short, 2026 pricing and enrollment for UnitedHealth’s Medicare and ACA plans will depend as much on Washington as on actuaries.
Optum: The Stabilizer Inside the Storm
For all the drama in the insurance segment, UnitedHealth’s diversified structure matters.
In Q3 2025: [24]
- Optum revenue rose to $69.2 billion, up 8% year‑on‑year and now more than 61% of total company sales.
- Optum Rx, the pharmacy benefit manager, contributed over half of Optum’s revenue.
- Optum’s operating profits fell less than UnitedHealthcare’s, making it a relative cushion against rising medical costs.
Zacks notes that UnitedHealth’s medical care ratio spike to 89.9% is the main pressure point, but the combination of Optum’s fee‑based businesses, pharmacy margins and data‑driven care models gives the group more levers than a pure insurer. [25]
However, potential DOJ scrutiny of Optum’s PBM practices—rumoured in some coverage—adds another layer of uncertainty that investors are watching carefully. [26]
Dividend, Balance Sheet and Capital Returns
Despite its rough year, UnitedHealth is still behaving like a mature blue‑chip when it comes to shareholder payouts.
- The board authorized a quarterly dividend of $2.21 per share on 7 November 2025, payable 16 December to shareholders of record on 8 December. [27]
- At the current share price, that equates to an annualized yield of about 2.7%, with an implied annual dividend of $8.84. [28]
MarketBeat data pegs the payout ratio at roughly mid‑40% of earnings, leaving room for reinvestment and potential future buybacks once regulatory uncertainty clears. [29]
UnitedHealth’s debt‑to‑capital ratio sits around 44% following the August closure of its Amedisys deal, a level management describes as consistent with its long‑term targets. [30]
Big Money Moves: Hedge Funds, Institutions and Congress
Hedge funds and institutional investors
UNH’s price collapse has triggered big moves on both sides of the ledger:
- Quadrature Capital increased its UNH stake by roughly 6,500% in Q2, to about 569,000 shares, making the stock its third‑largest holding (about 3.1% of its portfolio). [31]
- Silvant Capital Management went the other way, cutting its position by 93%, down to just over 4,000 shares. [32]
QuiverQuant’s analysis of institutional holdings shows a mixed but active picture: more than 1,500 institutions added shares while over 2,000 reduced or exited positions in recent quarters. Large firms such as Wellington, Capital Research and UBS Asset Management made multi‑million‑share adjustments up or down, reflecting dramatically different views on risk versus reward. [33]
A separate headline grabber: billionaire David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management sold about 92% of its UNH stake in Q3 after having aggressively bought in Q2, likely locking in a substantial short‑term gain. [34]
Congressional trading
Health policy is political, and so is the trading tape. QuiverQuant data shows members of U.S. Congress have traded UNH 28 times in the last six months, with 13 purchases and 15 sales. [35]
Most recently, Rep. Lisa C. McClain (R‑MI) disclosed the purchase of $1,001–$15,000 worth of UnitedHealth shares in her 401(k), at the end of October, when UNH was trading near $325. [36]
New Board Firepower: Scott Gottlieb Joins
In mid‑November, UnitedHealth announced that Scott Gottlieb, M.D., former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2017–2019), is joining its board of directors as an independent director. [37]
Gottlieb is widely known for work on:
- Accelerating generic drug approvals
- Promoting competition in the pharmaceutical market
- Tackling the opioid crisis and youth tobacco use
- Advocating for innovation‑friendly regulation
UnitedHealth’s leadership highlighted his experience at FDA, CMS and in health‑tech investing as a way to strengthen the company’s ability to navigate regulatory complexity, value‑based care models and data‑driven medicine. [38]
Analysts see the appointment as a signal that UnitedHealth is leaning into policy expertise at a time when its business model is under intense scrutiny from both the DOJ and lawmakers.
Is UNH Stock Cheap or Just Unloved?
Valuation is where opinions diverge most sharply.
“Deeply undervalued” camp
Simply Wall St, using a discounted cash flow (DCF) model, estimates UnitedHealth’s intrinsic value at around $800–$850 per share, implying the stock is trading at roughly a 60% discount to fair value. [39]
Their analysis also notes:
- Current P/E around 17x, versus an industry average north of 22x
- A proprietary “fair” P/E closer to 41x, based on expected growth and margins
- A 12‑month share performance of ‑40% to ‑45%, despite continued revenue growth
In this view, the market is extrapolating near‑term headwinds too far into the future, leaving a high‑quality compounder mispriced if it can restore margins and navigate regulation.
More cautious takes
Zacks Research, by contrast, ranks UNH as a “Hold” (Rank #3), citing: [40]
- A year‑to‑date price drop of about 35%, worse than the managed‑care industry overall
- A forward P/E around 18.9x, still above the industry average of roughly 15.5x
- Consensus 2025 EPS estimates implying a sharp 40%+ decline versus last year, reflecting margin pressure
From this lens, UNH is not obviously cheap relative to weakened near‑term earnings, and investors are being paid to wait—but not compensated for worst‑case regulatory outcomes.
MarketBeat aggregates 18 Buy ratings, 9 Holds and 3 Sells, for a “Moderate Buy” consensus and an average price target around $397—about 20% upside from current levels, if those forecasts prove correct. [41]
Key Risks and Catalysts Heading Into 2026
Looking ahead from 29 November 2025, the main UNH storylines to watch are:
- DOJ investigation outcome
- Fines, settlements or mandated changes to coding practices could materially affect earnings and reputation.
- A favourable resolution, on the other hand, could trigger multiple expansion. [42]
- Medicare Advantage and ACA economics
- Reputational repair and governance
- The company is still dealing with fallout from the 2024 cyberattack and the highly publicised murder of a UnitedHealthcare CEO, events that have kept it in the headlines beyond financial circles. [45]
- Moves like appointing Scott Gottlieb suggest a deliberate effort to strengthen its public‑policy credibility. [46]
- Capital allocation
- With a solid balance sheet and meaningful cash flow, UnitedHealth has room for sustained dividends and, eventually, the return of large‑scale share repurchases—some analysts argue that resumed buybacks could be a powerful catalyst if and when the regulatory dust settles. [47]
Bottom Line
As of 29 November 2025, UnitedHealth Group sits at the centre of the U.S. healthcare debate and the crosshairs of federal investigators—yet it remains a cash‑generating giant with one of the most powerful platforms in global health services.
- Bulls see a temporarily wounded franchise trading at a steep discount to long‑term value.
- Bears worry that Washington, not Wall Street models, now controls the outcome.
Either way, UNH has shifted from a sleepy defensive stalwart to a high‑beta, policy‑sensitive story stock, and anyone looking at it today needs to understand both the income statement and the Federal Register.
References
1. stockanalysis.com, 2. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 3. stockanalysis.com, 4. simplywall.st, 5. www.marketbeat.com, 6. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 7. www.beckerspayer.com, 8. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 9. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 10. www.grassley.senate.gov, 11. www.grassley.senate.gov, 12. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 13. www.reuters.com, 14. finance.yahoo.com, 15. www.quiverquant.com, 16. www.beckerspayer.com, 17. www.beckerspayer.com, 18. www.marketwatch.com, 19. www.timesunion.com, 20. www.timesunion.com, 21. www.axios.com, 22. www.axios.com, 23. www.nasdaq.com, 24. www.beckerspayer.com, 25. www.nasdaq.com, 26. www.nasdaq.com, 27. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 28. www.marketbeat.com, 29. www.marketbeat.com, 30. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 31. www.marketbeat.com, 32. www.marketbeat.com, 33. www.quiverquant.com, 34. www.nasdaq.com, 35. www.quiverquant.com, 36. www.marketbeat.com, 37. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 38. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 39. simplywall.st, 40. www.nasdaq.com, 41. www.marketbeat.com, 42. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 43. www.beckerspayer.com, 44. www.axios.com, 45. www.theguardian.com, 46. www.unitedhealthgroup.com, 47. www.unitedhealthgroup.com
