Healthcare advocates protest denial of care at UnitedHealthcare on July 15, 2024 in Minnetonka, Minnesota. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images for People’s Action Institute)
Welcome to The Topline, a weekly look at the big numbers driving the Minnesota news cycle, as well as the smaller ones you may have missed. This week: UnitedHealth shares lose value; the geography of home heating; Spending on special education is increasing significantly; and some pretty good deer hunting.
UnitedHealth stock has fallen 14% since the Thompson shooting
Something strange happened in the hours immediately after the December 4 shooting of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson: the company’s stock price increased sharply.
But by the next day the price had sunk, and now, almost two weeks later, the price appears to have remained about 14% lower than its pre-shooting level.
The shooting and the associated public attention, could be behind much of the decline. But there are other factors, including proposed bipartisan legislation to create insurers like UnitedHealth to divest all pharmacies they own.
UnitedHealth shareholders received a dividend payment of about $7 per share last year, and more than $8 per share this year. These payouts are ultimately derived in part from the insurance premiums that patients pay to the company. They are a big part of the why American healthcare is so expensive.
In a document released to investors ahead of the year-end investor conference, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said wrote that he was “confident” that the company “will achieve our long-term guidance of growing earnings per share by 13% to 16%, delivering differentiated returns for our shareholders and greater value for consumers and the healthcare system.” ”
UnitedHealth also works diligently to protect those shareholder returns. Last week, ProPublica reported that the company limited access to treatment for children with autism to keep costs down. Separately, a group of doctors from Tennessee sued the insureraccusing them of using “denial, delay and underpayment” tactics to reduce payments to providers.
If New York Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci wrote last weekone of the fundamental indignities of the American healthcare system is the knowledge that “there exists an inexplicable, cold, calculating entity that takes advantage of someone’s misery and vulnerability.”
The geography of home heating
Cartographer Joshua Stevens recently used census data to map how different parts of the country heat their homes.
For example, in the mild south electricity dominates, while in the northeast oil heating is common. In the upper Midwest, there is something of a divide, with rural areas relying largely on propane and urban areas using natural gas.
“Pipeline construction is expensive and required [density] to be most efficient,” Stevens explains. “This makes it difficult for natural gas to be the primary fuel type in areas with few, isolated homes that already rely on other fuels.”
Here in Red Lake Falls (pop. 1,400) in the northwest part of the state, we only started switching to natural gas a few years ago.
Spending on special education is rising rapidly
MPR news recently reported on increasing government funding for special education services in schools, which is expected to reach $1.7 billion by 2029.
Historically, the state has budgeted a 5 to 6% increase in special education funding, but this year that number has increased to 9%. About 18% of the state’s school population now uses special education services.
Officials say expanded testing and diagnostics are driving the increase, but inflation and rising teacher wages are also part of the spending picture.
In addition, federal authorities last week raided two autism treatment centers explosive allegations of Medicaid fraud.
A pretty good deer hunt
Hey, remember when there were Minnesota deer in there danger of extinction because they were all eaten by wolves? You can scrap all of that because the hunters had a pretty good year this year. Their total catch in 2024 was 163,743 deer preliminary data from the Department of Natural Resourcesan increase of approximately 3% from the previous year and the first year-over-year increase since 2020.
That’s actually what you would expect given the mild winter of 2023-2024, which allowed deer populations to recover slightly. That’s consistent with what the DNR has been saying all along: The main pressure on deer populations is harsh winters, not the state’s relatively modest wolf pack.
