UnitedHealth hired a defamation law firm to go after social media posts
fortune.com
fortune.com
The law firm says the surgeon made false claims. (Which claims? Were they false?)
The surgeon reacted with some twitter grandstanding saying she was on the side of the women she cares for who are battling cancer. (Noble, but irrelevant. She can tell the truth for a good cause or lie for a good cause. Which did she do?)
UHC's spokesperson makes a big show of saying there are "no insurance-related circumstances that would ever require a physician to step out of surgery" and they would "never ask or expect that." Happens all the time actually, in part because if you don't work on the insurance company's schedule and answer their calls, you may not be able to talk to them for weeks, and your patient is denied in the meantime. But is that what was happening here? Apparently nobody thought to ask or include that information.
The implication of this news item is that UHC has hired a shakedown operation to chill criticism on social media. Big if true. But it seems to really matter whether the people on either side are telling the truth. Somebody should report that out. Alas, I guess "big company vs plucky surgeon in social media spat" is a simple script that requires no work, we don't need to be curious about who the hero(ine) and the villain are.
The letter seems clear to me, and unfortunately for the doctor they have receipts (phone call recordings and the paperwork)
The biggest problem for the doctor is that they have a record of the doctor conceding that the wrong paperwork was submitted by her office (hence the call) and that the UHC rep asked for her to call back when convenient (not in the middle of surgery).
I think the UHC doctor got carried away, assumed all mistakes were on UHC’s end rather than her own admin staff, and then went to TikTok to tell a viral story with an exaggerated (at best) version of events.
> Alas, I guess "big company vs plucky surgeon in social media spat" is a simple script that requires no work, we don't need to be curious about who the hero(ine) and the villain are.
This mentality that we must pick a side, where one side is good and the other side is bad, is a huge problem with social media ragebait.
We can admit that the surgeon was wrong to make a viral TikTok with information that was somewhere between very misleading and an outright lie. Admitting this doesn’t make UHC the good guy or the hero.
You don’t have to pick a side. You shouldn’t automatically assume viral TikToks are true because they are targeted at companies you dislike.
I'll echo the above poster - when an insurance rep calls us we drop everything on the floor and rush to answer it because otherwise they will continue to deny our claim and not get back for weeks. Then they reject our claim because it's now outside their 3 month window.
Is there also a reason the surgeon themselves needs to get on the phone with insurance? Isn't that what the rest of the staff is for?
Spoken like someone who has never spent hours online with an insurance company. They have told me that they can't see uploaded forms due to a 'glitch'. They have told me fields were missing when I am looking at the same forms and telling them where the field is and what it contains. They have been carefully instructed to tell lie after lie after lie hoping that the consumer finally gives up.
I've had weird experiences online arguing (about shoplifting, as it happened) with people (I assume teenagers) on Discord who seemed to have a genuine belief that buying insurance was a magic positive-sum process for dealing with damages. They hadn't/didn't make the link that the insurer pays out approximately what they take in from premiums. That experience applied to medical insurance leaves me with a strong suspicion that UHC gets a lot of hate because they are the cheap option and people haven't cottoned on to the sad reality that if they want their claims paid out they can't go with the provider that is cheap because it denies a lot of claims. UHC's margins are there but don't seem to be that impressive. It wouldn't be surprising if they have to push back fairly hard or become insufficiently profitable.
Hint - the people with the fewest resource are the least able to fight back.
UHC shouldn't have margins. Healthcare and profit are a deadly combination.
UHC have all kinds of plans, both cheap and expensive, and their denial rates are high, regardless of what plans are purchased.
So why are people going with UHC?
EDIT I want to reply to 2 replies with the same comment, so I'll put it here - if the companies are paying & buying known-dodgy insurance, then why aren't they going with a cheap option?
What this means is that the most choice Americans face is whether to take the high or low deductible option their plan offers and whether they take the single or family plan.
If your company picks UHC and you don’t have a spouse whose job has something better, then you’re getting UHC or nothing
Most get it through work, and most areas have only a handful that count local docs as in-network. If you're lucky, work might offer a choice between two insurers.
Fortunately for health insurance companies, people who need to take the cheapest healthcare could rarely fight back.
One of the key lessons - if a doctor submits an incorrect billing code, insurance can't do anything to change it. If a doctor doesn't want to work with insurance to fix the codes, you as a patient have so few options to do anything.
We're not even people who spend a lot of time in hospitals - but we are pretty close to a 100% hit rate for billing issues with hospitals. Even during times in my life when I didn't have insurance.
I get that people kind of ascribe all sorts of medical billing problems to insurance companies. But I think a lot of it is kind of ignorance comes from inept hospital management shifting blame. And often doctors and practitioners themselves are very removed and unaware of the awful billing at their own practices.
What's missing is all the days I had to get up, check on my claim, and call them because the claim was still denied and they sure weren't going to call me.
What's missing is the hours I spent on the phone with them taking them step-by-step through the same issue each time.
This happens all the time.
Most independent doctors billing OON may also need to speak with 3rd party claims processor, in all likelyhood. Same is true for some WC/NF/Lien claims
If UNH requires others to communicate with them via complicated phone trees that waste callers' time, then that means UNH is automatically at fault.
You have pesky PHI in the middle. Funny how of all things, PHI hasn't done a thing to prevent data leaks in healthcare, but it has done fairly well in hindering all async communications with payors.
>>The letter seems clear to me
Where is the letter?
>> doctor conceding that the wrong paperwork was submitted by her office (hence the call)
That is a strong assumption to make. The tack you are taking is that one of the 2 parties noticed a wrong PA was requested (and approved) and tried to do something about it, preop. That's the assumption. IF the PA was fine, and that's 100% shenanigans by UHC. Less likely, but still very possible.
I am not a surgeon but I have experience standing right next to them during surgeries. In my opinion, they already know that there is never a need to take a phone call from an insurance company during a case. Other reasons for a call may exist, sure, that part is not out of the ordinary... but insurance approval would have already happened before the case had ever started. Plus the overnight stay is not part of the billing for the surgery itself anyways.
This is false. There's EMTALA, which requires that emergency services will be provided until a patient can be transferred. But doctors absolutely refuse to provide services based on ability to pay all the time.
https://casetext.com/case/diaz-v-division-of-soc-servs-1, as an example, involved a case where chemo was warranted for emergency treatment, but not on an ongoing basis. The court found they could treat enough to stabilize, then discharge, even if that guaranteed an emergent return later on.
There's a good reason Luigi killed the CEO of United Healthcare.
Only in a very specific, narrow set of circumstances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_an...
It only applies to emergency assessment and stabilizing care, and only if the facility accepts Medicare patients.
I admit that taking this attitude toward falsehoods isn't 100% ethical, judged by itself, but if it helps to end a system that has killed many thousands and will continue to do until it is abolished, this is a rare case where I'm ok with the ends justifying the means.
Just like "2 weeks to flatten the curve" and "masks don't work"? There's no way that "the ends justifies the means, a little lie to advance our cause" would backfire, right?
Because the fact is true that even though they probably didn't demand to speak to the surgeon immediately, there's a reason the staff deemed it worth pulling her from surgery, and it's because if she didn't get to talk to the caller right now when they were on the phone, it could be any number of days before the matter could be resolved, and the hospital may not be willing to proceed if the insurance company is going to deny the claim, since that could saddle the patient with an unexpected $10,000 bill. In this way, our shitty system, designed on purpose by companies like UHC, forced most of this to happen.
You know what's arguably worse than insurance companies? Racists. So when there's a mysterious flu coming out of China and racists are latching onto it as a way to hate on Chinese people (eg. "China flu"), we better downplay it[1] so we don't give them any rhetorical ammo.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-01-2...
>there's a reason the staff deemed it worth pulling her from surgery [...]
Sounds like you're giving infinite charity to the doctor/staff and not allowing for any possibility that any sort of mistake on their end. Is this based off of any facts, or your "hatred for this industry is too strong to grant them any quarter even when they're technically in the right"?
The headline is accurate, at that point in time nothing about the virus was clear. The only portion of this article that even tries to downplay anything about China is this portion which as far as I know is still accurate.
> On the call with reporters, Messonnier also seemed to allay concerns that the virus could be transmitted via packages sent from China. Coronaviruses like SARS and MERS tend to have poor survivability, and there’s “very low, if any risk” that a product shipped at ambient temperatures over a period of days or weeks could spread such a virus.
> “We don’t know for sure if this virus will behave exactly the same way,” Messonnier said, but there’s no evidence to support transmission of the virus via imported goods.
Why are you trying to paint that as doctors lying?
the exact wording I use was "downplay", not "lying".
>The headline is accurate, at that point in time nothing about the virus was clear. The only portion of this article that even tries to downplay anything about China is this portion which as far as I know is still accurate.
Even though the headline is technically accurate, the "downplay" part comes from the CDC trying to imply that the risk was low.
"Messonnier repeated her message that the immediate risk to the US public is low at this point."
The system insurance companies designed works something like this:
Provider: Enters patient ID, procedure code, date, etc. into the insurance billing system.
Insurance company: Applies an automated check to find reasons why this claim might be denied. For example: "Our records show that you amputated her right arm yesterday, so we can't pay for wrist surgery with a date of today" or "automatically deny all claims for XXXXXX as 'not medically necessary' and wait for them to appeal by following a separate process". If it finds any reasons, claim is denied. Some limited info is sent to the provider or patient, usually with a lot of latency.
Doctor or Patient: Must play a game with the insurance company to figure out (1) why insurance company thinks [insert wrong belief] (2) how to satisfactorily prove to them otherwise and (3) why despite after solving 1 and 2, the claim is still showing as denied. Providers are overwhelmed with hundreds of instances of this at all times, so they can't always handle doing this for you, and patients often lack the documentation, medical knowledge, and legal definitions in the policy, to be able to advocate for themselves.
If it were designed by anyone other than a bunch of ghouls looking to profit off killing people, there would be good ways to asynchronously but promptly enumerate and solve the problems that prevent claims from being paid. This would be tricky to build, but not impossible if the parties involved wanted to cure disease and save lives more than they wanted to be rich.
spoken like someone who doesn't have a chronic illness requiring an expensive medication to be delivered every month for the rest of their life, who every year has to fight with the insurance company about the fact that multiple sclerosis does not go away and that the medication is still needed, and yet STILL has lapses in receiving the pre-approved and approved and re-approved treatment which causes new symptoms to occur and old ones to relapse while the bureaucrat at the insurance company who is incentivized to give you the runaround plays delay deny delay deny delay over the medication that has been effective for YEARS and will be needed indefinitely.
No, we really do not need to be curious about who the villain is. If UHC is worried about their image, maybe they should DO THE THING THEIR CUSTOMERS FUCKING PAY THEM TO DO
Health insurance in America is broadly profitable. But note that UHC just paying out claims puts them in the same place as California home insurers. Part of the job of a health insurer is to deny unnecessary claims, to be a check on providers, both in procedures and their pricing.
Health insurance is actually a lot less profitable than most big businesses. Something like half as profitable as the S&P 500 average.
But ignoring that, there are also big non-profit insurers. They aren't appreciably different.
There's a big misconception that if we could just remove profit from our healthcare system every problem would be solved. However, if you look at where healthcare dollars go, profit and administrative overhead (insurance, hospital admin, etc.) are a single digit percentage of overall spending. If you could wave your magic wand and make it go away tomorrow, things would barely change.
Note that even countries with socialized medicine have administrative overhead in the single digit percentage range, so it's not actually possible to drive it to zero.
We severely overestimate how much of our healthcare dollars go to profits and executive compensation. I think because those are the only safe targets to be mad at. Nobody wants to engage in conversations about getting surgeons to take lower compensation or limiting certain types of care (which is very much a thing in any medicine system). American healthcare is expensive, but we Americans also consume (and demand) much more healthcare than elsewhere in the world.
Unless it’s addictive or subject to group effects (e.g. antibiotics), it should be OTC. If someone kills themselves self administering another YouTube cure, that’s on the influencer and the patient.
Not sure who's life those regulations were saving.
My first box of Paxlovid was bought for cash.
When Germany offered me only NSAIDs the 9th day after using a bone saw on me, the black market was there for me too.
Seems cat food would be an easy one. Want me to ask my guys, or are you sorted now?
Kinda like how a barber in my state need a 20k license and 1000 hours of training, but on steroids. At least at home haircuts aren't illegal (yet).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272720/top-global-biotec...
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/medicare-drug-price...
https://www.propublica.org/article/take-the-generic-drug-pat...
> Faced with competition, some pharmaceutical companies are cutting deals with insurance companies to favor their brand-name products over cheaper generics. Insurers pay less, but sometimes consumers pay more.
https://www.valuepenguin.com/health-insurance-claim-denials-...
They deny 33% of all claims. I think they have a long way to go to prove they are doing what their customers pay them to do.
Now all of the job of any for-profit company is to make money for their investors, that in and of itself is not a problem. The problem is that specifically, for health insurance companies, they make money by denying people health care. They have no incentive to pay claims beyond the minimum necessary.
We have public health care too and it isn't perfect but they don't lie to our faces when telling us why they won't cover something.
It is essentially cost plus 20%.
The tricky parts are balancing opex to profit, and balancing coverage with competitive costs.
How can this occur with the given incentives? You have parent corp UHG who owns the whole vertical and you've got dumb fucking congress (deduced from Hanlon's razor) saying only a single part of that vertical is capped.
The group’s gross profits are in line with the legal 80/20 rule. And more-integrated models (Kaiser) exist with better satisfaction ratings.
Edit: I scrolled down and saw someone else say the same:
Outside large hospitals, there is an alternative: pay yourself. You can usually draw down against an FSA or HSA, or just eat the cost. Only works if you’re wealthy, of course. But most small providers have a cash rate they’ll tell you verbally but never in writing that is below their official negotiated rate.
Which seems incredibly ironic given that this article is 3 paragraphs.
Maybe save judgement on journalists until you can parse 5th-grade-reading-level sentences correctly.
EDIT: Nope, I checked his comments, every single one is "you clearly know nothing about <blank>" and the next one is "you clearly know nothing about <something else>". Total Hacker News Redditization happening before our eyes.
> UHC's spokesperson makes a big show of saying there are "no insurance-related circumstances that would ever require a physician to step out of surgery" and they would "never ask or expect that." Happens all the time actually
You make a good point. UHC has said something that, according to your direct knowledge, is patently untrue, and yet this article contains nothing accusatory against the surgeon that said something contradictory to the statement that you assert is completely wrong.
If one party says something wrong and another party contradicts them, reporting that is a failure of journalism becau
well? Don't leave us hanging!
> On Jan. 7, a plastic surgeon named Elisabeth Potter posted a video of herself on Instagram claiming that UnitedHealthcare called her mid-surgery and asked her to justify an in-patient stay for a woman who has breast cancer and needed a surgical procedure to treat it. Potter then claimed that the insurer denied the patient an overnight stay and threatened her with legal action for her posts.
Are these claims? What does “surgical procedure” mean? In what way is she using the word “denied”? It says UHC threatened her with legal action for her posts but, as mitchelist has surmised, we don’t know what she said or if she said anything at all.
While the article articulates exactly what the surgeon said about UHC and links directly to her video of her saying it [1]… does it? Who knows what’s going on? I’d write more here but I am using speech to text because my dominant hand is stuck inside a jar of honey and my wife’s cries of “stop making a fist” (whatever that means) are getting picked up by my microphone.
Now that might be mistaken, there is no proof one way or the other that I can see, but this does seem to mirror problem areas in AI generated writing.
I wish I had my time and attention that I spent on this back.
This is in the Fortune story. UHC provided a direct quote, right after some text you quoted, and the post continues on with the claims the lawyers make.
>The implication of this news item is that UHC has hired a shakedown operation to chill criticism on social media. Big if true. But it seems to really matter whether the people on either side are telling the truth.
Implication? UHC uses the services of a high profile law firm that openly advertises itself as specializing in "defamation matters and representing clients facing high-profile reputational attacks" and, sent a surgeon treating a UHC patient, a C&D letter, over a social media post.
The firm worked for Dominion - and if anyone cares to look back, their record, like nearly every other electronic voting company, isn't very good.
There's really nothing in the story that is unbelievable, and by your own admission we can see how they very carefully phrased it as 'never asked or expected'. This means she'd have to prove that missed calls resulted in delayed care for UHC patients - likely possible, but cumbersome...
Frankly it seems like you didn't read the article fully, or you're being disingenuous.
https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1igp35p/follow_up... ("Follow up: The doctor who was pulled out of surgery to call UHC because they were denying her patient’s stay got a threatening letter from UHC for talking about it on social media", 181 comments)
I know people will default to believing the physician and not the lawyers, but from my read of the letter it appears UHC’s lawyers have valid points (don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger)
Specifically, UHC appears to have recordings of the calls and the paperwork which contradict the claims in the social media post.
The two biggest problems I see from my quick read:
1. UHC’s rep said the issue was non urgent and asked for a call back “when convenient to you”. This differs from the social media post claiming that UHC called and demanded she “scrub out of surgery” and “call right now”.
2. UHC has records of the doctor conceding that her office’s submission for inpatient care was erroneous and that they actually meant to request observation care. That’s why UHC was calling.
The fact that UHC came with receipts (recordings of the phone calls) and that the doctor even conceded the error during the call does not put the doctor in a good position. The original claim that the insurance rep demanded she scrub out of surgery immediately was a red flag that something was amiss with the story.
Based on my experience with some hospitals, it's possible that something like this happened:
UHC [on phone]: We'd like to speak to Dr. X when possible
Reception [on phone]: Sure, s/he's available
Reception [to doctor]: Stop the surgery! United Healthcare needs to speak to you immediately!
Dr. X [frantically undressing]: I can't believe these vampires are so demanding!
Disclaimer: I contract for hospitals. I usually have good experiences working with management, doctors, nurses, and technologists. Practically all of the bad experiences are with reception and security (a few places are good at it, but not most). I've never seen people more devoted to making sure things don't get done. I am always happy to give them my ID, my company ID, use the metal detector, search the bag — I don't care. But they always, inexplicably, insist on calling someone in the department, who is usually busy, who doesn't need to actually do anything, and nonetheless, we must slow everything down and bother them. I don't know who writes these policies, but I could see this happening.
But what do lawyers know?
But if you really want to talk about other jurisdictions, there's plenty of opportunities for censorious fuckery. Just off the top of my head (and limited to capital-W Western[0] countries):
- English defamation law is notorious for having a low bar for legal action.
- Japanese defamation law only exempts true statements that are in the "public interest".
[0] Having a liberal constitution and rule of law
The surgeon went to social media blaming UHC for everything, with the assumption that her own staff couldn't have been part of the miscommunication or paperwork errors.
UHC comes back, with receipts, showing that the error is somewhere on the hospital side.
There's a large gulf between being wrong and being libelous.
This is the truth. People do not understand the depths of hell you are in when you are dealing with hospital admins.
So I’d take it with a pinch of salt but the lawyers might be absolutely correct as well. I’m just saying I can see it as a tactic but maybe I’m a bit paranoid. Wondering if just I jumped to this conclusion?
In states where recording requires consent you will get a pre-recorded message at the beginning of the call warning you that it's being recorded.
This feels more like a wounded animal lashing out than like a strategy decided in a board room
The wouldn't kill and eat your grandmother if it was legal to make a little money, but 100% without exception they would look the other way and profess innocence if SOMEONE ELSE killed and ate your grandmother and it made them money.
edit: and they would character assassinate and/or sue you for criticizing them in a large enough forum.
and Related:
UnitedHealth Is Sick of Everyone Complaining About Its Claim Denials
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/10/inhaler-c... TLDR: UnitedHealth subsidiary Optum cut coverage for inhalers without bothering to tell patients in advance, or to let affected patients know of alternatives that were still/now covered, and a man died because of it. If the case goes to trial Optum is looking at a bankruptcy-level payout.
In this case, the irony is baked right in. UHC was calling the provider because the provider legitimately screwed up the billing codes and was trying to overcharge the patient!
Like if your argument being fiduciary duty to rob everyone blind health outcomes be damned, then why say Kaiser is not being sued in to the ground?
That was referring to bureaucracy but it seems where America really needs to restore democracy is with things like health insurance where everyone hates it but the consensus is it'll never change because of the money spent lobbying politicians? (Musk thing https://youtu.be/gAuTb-yMNk4?t=63)
I wouldn't be surprised if the person they talked to actually worked for Optum which is why UHC is denying that they would ever do anything so insensitive as call a doctor to deny a claim mid-surgery.
They did review the call. The calls did not support the claims in the social media post. The physician posted the letter she received on Instagram and, to be honest, I’m having a hard time siding with the physician: https://www.instagram.com/p/DFlR1CrJ688/?img_index=4
Unless you believe that UHC’s lawyers are lying about their records (which I have no doubt many people will claim) then it appears the errors were primarily in the administration at the hospital.
Specifically, UHC did not demand she scrub out of surgery, but that she call back as soon as convenient. The physician spun it on social media as UHC demanding she leave surgery for the call immediately, but that seems like a miscommunication in the hospital staff.
They also appear to have records that the hospital submitted a request for outpatient surgery but they were doing inpatient surgery, which prompted the calls.
Which means "now, or you'll wait on hold for hours".
Maybe stop behaving badly?
“Naw, we’ll lawyer up and crush those peasants.”
Doesn't mean much in a sanctioned cartel. Everyone in the cartel can agree the prices must go up. The industry is rotten and quibbling about who is relatively worst doesn't improve a long term picture.
Brief background for people who have had no reason to know what the hell Medigap is: in the US if you choose traditional Medicare at 65 [1] it is pretty simple. Various preventative services are covered 100% with no deductible, and other services are covered with a $257 deductible and a 20% copay.
You can buy "Medigap" insurance from private companies that help cover your Medicare copay and sometimes other things Medicare doesn't pay. Medigap plans are standardized by the government named Plan A through Plan N which vary in what they cover and how much they cover it.
It should be hard to be a shady Medigap insurer because they are almost completely out of the loop. You go to your doctor, the doctor says you need say an MRI, you go get that done and the bill is $500. The MRI place sends the bill to Medicare, Medicare pays 80% ($400), and also notifies your Medigap insurer. The Medigap insurer then pays the remaining 20% ($100).
The Medigap insurer doesn't have a say in whether or not they have to cover it. If Medicare approves covering their 80% then the Medigap plan has to cover it too. No saying that you should have went to a cheaper MRI place, or your doctor should have done some other cheaper test instead of an MRI.
So if they can't be shady when it comes to coverage, what can they be shady on? They can be shady when trying to get you to sign up.
Suppose you are in Texas and are turning 65 and are shopping for a Medigap plan. You decide you want plan G. On Medicare.gov for zip code 75002 (first zip code I found when searching for "Texas zip codes") there are 44 plan G Medigap plans available from 33 different insurance companies.
30 of these companies are using "attained age" pricing. Premiums are low for younger buyers and go up as a function of age.
2 of them use "issue age" pricing. Your initial premium depends on your age when you buy, but does not then go up as a function of age.
Finally, one company, UHC, uses "community" pricing. With community pricing the premiums are not a function of age. If you buy a community priced plan with a $200/month premium at 65 you might be paying say $300 at 75, but that won't be because of your age. It will be because of inflation. In particular when you are paying $300 at 75 that is also what someone signing up at 65 that year will be paying. Hence why it called "community" pricing--everyone on that plan pays the same.
For someone at 65 typically an attained age plan will be cheaper than a community plan. So why would you ever buy a community plan? Buy an attained age plan, and a few years later when the price rises above the price of community plans switch plans, right?
The problem with that is that in most states if you are joining a Medigap plan other than in a window around when you turned 65 (and some other exceptional situations) the insurer is allowed to take age and pre-existing conditions into account. They can refuse to sell you a plan, or charge higher premiums, or exclude your pre-existing conditions from coverage.
That means if you are in such a state and either have expensive pre-existing conditions or will be unfortunate enough to develop some later you may be stuck with the Medigap plan you first buy. Then a community rated plan can make a lot of sense. If you are going to be stuck with your plan a $200/month community plan may be more attractive than an attained age plan that is $150/month now that will be rising to $350/month over the next say 20 years.
OK, so now imagine you are 65. You've entered 65 as your age in the plan finder at Medicare.gov. You see all those plan G attained age plans which start at $133/month, and the issue age plans that start at $166/month. And then there are the UHC community plans starting at $166/month.
That sure looks attractive. $166/month that doesn't change as a function of age will in a few years be a better deal than $133/month that goes up as a function of age.
When you follow the link to the plan website and fill in your information you will indeed be told it is $166/month (or close). But under that there is a line that says "$308.39 standard premium" with the $308.39 struck out. And below that it says "Includes $138.78 in discounts".
They are apparently claiming it is a community priced plan because everyone has a standard premium of $308.39, but then they give an age based discount. If you are 65-67 it is 45%. Then it goes down 2% a year through age 79. Then it goes down 3% a year until reaching 0 at age 86.
I fail to see how this is not in fact an attained age plan. Based on what I've read on /r/medicare and other forums where people new to Medicare seek advice I'm sure that there are people who will not notice this and buy that plan thinking the premium won't be going up as a function of age.
I believe that there are other insurers doing this same disguising of an attained age plan as a community plan, but is particularly scummy in the case of UHC because UHC has a deal with AARP to provide these plans under the AARP name.
Medicare.gov does know that the price actually does depend on age. If you change you info on Medicare.gov's plan search to say you are 75 it does show a higher price for the UHC plan just like it does for the attained age and issue age plans, so if you think to do that you might catch that something is fishy.
But if you are already predisposed toward UHC because of the AARP association and because you want community pricing, you might not see a need to try other ages since you would not expect that to matter.
I'm in a state where they don't do those shenanigans. In my state all plans are community rated and if you signed up for Medigap when you turned 65 you can later freely change plans and providers and the new provider has to accept you with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions and with the same premium they charge everyone else.
If UHC tried that discount trick here what would happen is people would sign up with them at 65 to get the 45% discount, and as soon as that discount has declined enough to where what they were actually paying was more than the plans of the other plan G providers they would switch to one of those.
More and more states are liberalizing their rules for Medigap plan switching. Only a few are as liberal as mine (Washington) but several do allow you to easily switch between providers of the same letter plan with no penalties for pre-existing conditions and no higher premiums, and that should be enough to make the discount trick a losing deal for them. It's currently I think around 16 or 17 states that do this. It's a mix of red and blue things so this doesn't seem to be a partisan thing.
[1] In "traditional" Medicare the government is the insurance provider. The alternative is "Medicare Advantage" where the government pays a private company to be your provider. Think of Medicare Advantage as a lot like what you get from plans with employer provided insurance or with plans bought on the ACA marketplace.