Comment by nradov

You have that a little mixed up. Both UnitedHealthcare (UHC) and Optum are subsidiaries of UnitedHealth Group (UHG). UHC never bought Optum. Some parts of Optum were spun out of UHC's IT department so that they could commercialize software they had developed for internal use and sell it to other customers (including some of UHC's competitors in the commercial payer space). Other parts of Optum were acquired or created internally. What is now OptumRx (the PBM) was originally PacifiCare Health Systems. UHG acquired that business way back in 2005 before the Optum brand even existed.

I agree that more reform and enforcement is needed in the healthcare industry but let's at least get the facts and history right.