Despite rising out-of-pocket costs and millions losing coverage, U.S. health insurance giants posted record profits in 2024 while their CEOs took home a combined $146 million.
By Alexis Sterling, Nation of Change
As millions of Americans struggle with mounting medical debt, delayed care, and shrinking access to providers, the seven largest publicly traded U.S. health insurance companies reported a combined $71.3 billion in profits for 2024—setting a new record and fueling growing bipartisan scrutiny of the industry’s practices. The profits, up by more than half a billion dollars from 2023, were released ahead of former Cigna executive Wendell Potter’s testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Potter, now president of the nonprofit Center for Health and Democracy, compiled the financial data and published it in his Health Care un-covered newsletter. Alongside a breakdown of revenues and profits for UnitedHealth, CVS/Aetna, Cigna, Elevance, Humana, Centene, and Molina, Potter also released CEO compensation figures showing the companies’ top executives collectively earned $146.1 million in 2024. “That’s enough to cover annual premiums for thousands of American families,” he wrote.
While Americans skipped medications and rationed insulin, “shareholders are not the only ones benefiting from the care-restricting barriers insurers have erected to boost profits,” Potter said. “The CEOs of those seven companies took home a combined $146.1 million in 2024 compensation.”
The scale of the industry’s gains, he argued, reveals a deeper crisis in the healthcare system: “So, what’s driving the revenue surge? Gouging. Insurers continued to jack up premiums for their commercial customers and overcharge the government.”
Recent Posts
From Guernica to Gaza, Mass Killers Have Been Above It All
August 28, 2025
Take Action Now The Detached Cruelty of Air PowerBy Norman Solomon, Tom Dispatch Killing from the sky has long offered the sort of detachment that…
Sanders Will Rally With Maine Challenger To Susan Collins, Graham Platner
August 28, 2025
Take Action Now Platner condemned “endless wars” and backed universal health care in his campaign launch video.By Sharon Zhang, TruthOut Sen.…
Yesterday’s DNC Meeting Proves Democrats Still Don’t Get It
August 28, 2025
Take Action Now Democrats aren’t setting the stage for a movement. They’re letting Trump set the terms of the debate — again.By Corbin Trent,…
In D.C., An Authoritarian Dress Rehearsal
August 28, 2025
Take Action Now The spectacle of Trump’s Washington takeover may be fascist pageantry, but it’s also something more.By Alberto Toscano, In These…