Congressional panel probing claims of \u2018opaque business practices\u2019 at Irish arm of UnitedHealth Group\n<\/p>\n
US congressman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, who chairs the committee, has written to Dr Patrick Conway, the CEO of UnitedHealth\u2019s Optum RX subsidiary. In the letter sent last week, the Congressman \u2013 a close ally of President Donald Trump \u2013 has claimed the Irish company is using a pharmaceutical purchasing organisation that it has established here as a way \u201cto evade transparency and oversight in the United States\u201d to the detriment of American patients.<\/p>\n
Comer has demanded a series of company documents and information about the Irish-based entity.<\/p>\n
Optum employs almost 1,600 people at offices in Dublin and Letterkenny, Co Donegal.<\/p>\n
UnitedHealth Group tragically hit the headlines in December 2024 when its CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead in New York last December.<\/p>\n
The company was already the focus of the Comer-led Congressional committee since July 2024 when Republicans on the committee released a report entitled, The Role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers in Prescription Drug Markets. That report made detailed allegations that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) used their position as middlemen to enact anti-competitive policies and protect their bottom line.<\/p>\n
The congressional committee is now seeking specific information about a PBM that the UnitedHealth subsidiary has set up in Ireland.<\/p>\n
PBMs are third-party companies that act as middlemen between health insurers, drug manufacturers, and pharmacies. Their main purpose is to manage prescription drug benefits for health plans established by large employers, insurance companies, and US government programs like Medicare.<\/p>\n
In his letter to Conway, Comer states that Optum\u2019s Irish headquartered PBM \u2013 Emisar Pharma Services, LLC \u2013 was set up \u201cto evade transparency and oversight in the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is especially true for GPOs headquartered overseas as these entities may be used to retain additional revenue and fees and to sidestep US legislative and regulatory reforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmisar Pharma, which UnitedHealth Group\u2019s Optum Rx created in 2021 and is headquartered in Ireland, appears to be yet another example of the institutional intent at opacity and avoidance of oversight within your company,\u201d wrote Comer.<\/p>\n
In April, Trump signed an executive order that \u201crequired PBMs to disclose the fees they pay to brokers for enrolling employers in PBMs\u201d and the Federal Trade Commission has resumed lawsuits in this regard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Committee is concerned that your company\u2019s opaque business practices and relationships, including the creation of new corporate structures abroad, combined with unchecked integration, is hurting patients and costing taxpayers,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
The Congressman requested documents and communications regarding the creation and role of Emisar Pharma.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmisar is based in the US, and we have employees in both the US and Ireland,\u201d said Elizabeth Hoff, a spokeswoman for Optum RX. Our Dublin-based team is an important part of Emisar\u2019s ongoing efforts to provide significant value for participating members, health plans, and consumers. We look forward to responding to the congressional committee\u2019s letter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Congressional panel probing claims of \u2018opaque business practices\u2019 at Irish arm of UnitedHealth Group US congressman James Comer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,33201,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-44164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-fearghal-oconnor","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}