UnitedHealth Workers Get Critical on Care

One UnitedHealth employee, feeling pinched by higher health care costs, voiced some resentment.

"We UHG [UnitedHealth Group] employees -- who don't earn millions per year but perform a vital function for the company -- are left having to pay much more out of our own pockets," the employee complained in a recent email to TheStreet.com. "Maybe [McGuire] could give his own employees part of the millions he is using for the butterflies at the University of Florida so that we could have a normal co-pay plan like we used to, and like they offer most other employers ... [Meanwhile], the UHG benefits people won't even address our concerns with the plan. They just say that is what is being offered, and we have to either take it or not."

Shares of UnitedHealth slipped 13 cents to $49.61 on Monday. They have lost more than 20% of their value since the end of last year, a slide -- fueled by the compensation scandal -- that could stir some outcry at Tuesday's shareholder meeting.

Mixed Review

To be sure, some UnitedHealth employees seem perfectly satisfied with the company and the benefits it has to offer.

Take Daryl Richard, vice president of communications for the Uniprise division that oversees the company's CDHPs. Richard points out that he pays lower monthly premiums for his Definity health plan than he would for traditional health insurance. He also notes that UnitedHealth funds part of his high deductible for the plan. As a result, he says, he wound up spending about the same last year on health care as he would under a traditional plan -- even though his wife had a baby.

If so, Richard's experience differs from those reported by others facing big-ticket procedures under CDHPs. Elizabeth Fowler, the former chief health care counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, last year told The Washington Post that her out-of-pocket expenses doubled when she ran into some health care problems while covered under a Definity plan.