What's Wrong With UnitedHealth Stock?

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) is a stock that looks to be in deep trouble. As of the end of January, it was already down 13% in 2026. And that's after an already brutal year in 2025, when it fell 35% in value. Investors have been dumping the stock in droves, as things appear to be going from bad to worse.

The company recently released its latest quarterly results, which only exacerbated concerns about its future and whether this is still a good business to invest in. Here's why UnitedHealth stock seems to be in an endless free fall these days, and whether you should consider taking a chance on it.

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What's weighing down UnitedHealth stock?

UnitedHealth reported its fourth-quarter results last week, and they technically weren't all that bad. The company beat expectations on the bottom line as its adjusted earnings per share came in at $2.11 versus the $2.10 that analysts were projecting. The company's top line was a little weak, however, totaling $113.2 billion, which was slightly lower than the $113.82 billion that Wall Street was looking for.

It was a slight miss on revenue, but the bigger concern is that the future may not be all that much more promising for UnitedHealth. The Trump administration is proposing that rates are flat for Medicare Advantage in 2027, which is bad news not only for UnitedHealth, but other health insurance companies as well. Analysts were expecting rates to increase by at least 4%, while the government proposal calls for a rate increase of just 0.09%.

This is already as UnitedHealth is struggling to grow in 2026. For the current year, it forecasts revenue to be around $439 billion, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 2%.

A recovery may not be coming this year

There's a lot of attention these days on high healthcare costs, which is why I'm not optimistic that UnitedHealth's stock will experience a quick turnaround. For years, this has been a strong growth stock to own as the company has been doing well on both its top and bottom lines. That simply may not be the case anymore, at least in the short term. UnitedHealth has been struggling with rising utilization rates and higher medical costs, and now, it's looking as though it will be difficult to generate much revenue growth as well.

All in all, it doesn't paint a terribly exciting picture for the healthcare stock. At the very least, you'll need to be extremely patient with it, because there's no reason, unfortunately, to expect things to get better for UnitedHealth in the near future.

David Jagielski, CPA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends UnitedHealth Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.