Insurers Bragged About Being Woke While Bilking Taxpayers

Even as Americans grapple with rising health insurance premiums, growing out-of-pocket costs, and an increase in claims denials, many of the nation’s largest insurers and their executives are spending time and resources promoting gender ideology and corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

Family health insurance premiums have climbed roughly 26% over the past five years, driven in part by rising prescription drug prices, increased utilization, higher hospital costs and the growing burden of chronic disease. At the same time, prescription drug denial rates rose among major insurers, including UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Cigna, and Anthem, according to The New York Times.

As those trends continue to unfold, insurers face mounting legal and regulatory scrutiny over whether they improperly billed federal healthcare programs or denied medically necessary treatment.

“Insurance executives are aggressively prioritizing ESG and radical climate policies, DEI initiatives, and transgender activism while patients are being crushed,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Insurance companies exist to manage risk and help Americans get the care they need, not to play the role of political activist while consumers suffer the consequences.”

UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, has publicly embraced a broad array of DEI, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), and gender-related initiatives even as federal scrutiny of its business has intensified.

In 2025, UnitedHealth received a perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index, which evaluates companies based on workforce protections for LGBTQ employees, so-called “inclusive benefits” — including health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusion for medically necessary care — and corporate social responsibility, among other categories.

UnitedHealthcare, the company’s insurance arm, maintains a list of resources for patients who identify as LGBTQ, including the Trevor Project, a radical transgender advocacy group criticized for connecting minors with trans activists for so-called “gender affirming” counseling.

UnitedHealthcare has also published guidance for families navigating gender identity issues, stating that children as young as three years old may have a “strong sense of gender.” The guidance encourages families of children questioning their gender identity to seek out “affirming” medical providers.

Many UnitedHealthcare plans cover hormone therapies and surgical procedures related to gender transition. While the Trump administration has taken steps to stop federal Medicaid and Medicare dollars from funding sex-change procedures for minors, many states bar insurers from categorically excluding transgender-related care in private plans.

UnitedHealth has also committed to a series of climate-related goals, including achieving operational net-zero emissions by 2035.

According to a summary of UnitedHealth’s 2025 annual board meeting, the company’s board said it continues to monitor and adjust its DEI policies to comply with emerging regulations while supporting what it describes as the needs of the communities it serves.

That emphasis has continued even as UnitedHealth faces multiple legal and regulatory challenges.

In February 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a civil fraud investigation into UnitedHealth’s Medicare Advantage billing practices. Moreover, a January Senate Judiciary Committee report alleged the company manipulated the Medicare Advantage risk adjustment system to increase payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

“UnitedHealth Group appears to be gaming the system and abusing the risk adjustment process to turn a steep profit. Taxpayers and patients deserve accurate, clear-cut and fair risk adjustment processes,” Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said at the time. “Bloated federal spending to UnitedHealth Group is not only hurting the Medicare Advantage program, it’s harming the American taxpayer.”

CVS Health has likewise continued to promote health equity and ESG initiatives while facing substantial penalties for government billing violations.

Under CEO David Joyner, CVS Health has described “fostering inclusion across the full spectrum of diversity” as promoting belonging and leading to “superior business results.”

In 2024, CVS became the first healthcare company to receive Health Equity accreditation from URAC, and in 2025, it received a perfect score from HRC while also becoming a Platinum Partner of the organization, the highest tier of corporate support.

At the same time, CVS has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to resolve allegations of improper billing.

CVS agreed to pay $37 million in December 2025 to settle False Claims Act allegations related to over-dispensing insulin prescriptions and billing government healthcare programs for more insulin than patients needed.

Months earlier, in July 2025, a federal court ordered CVS’s Omnicare unit to pay nearly $949 million in penalties and damages after finding it had submitted millions of false claims for invalid prescriptions billed to the government.

Elevance Health, formerly known as Anthem, has also tied ESG considerations directly to incentive structures, according to a 2024 report. In 2025, Elevance received a near-perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign for its LGBTQ workplace policies and benefits.

There is evidence that the company has made adjustments to its DEI-related policies in recent years, however.

According to its 2022 Supply Chain Sustainability Policy, Elevance screened suppliers based on their commitment to “climate protections,” “inclusion strategy,” leadership representation, and other metrics as part of its ESG engagement program. But the company’s 2025 policy makes no mention of DEI, instead emphasizing efforts to operate in ways that minimize environmental harm in support of its goal of reaching net-zero emissions.

In May 2025, the DOJ filed a False Claims Act complaint alleging Elevance paid more than $230 million in illegal kickbacks to insurance brokers to steer Medicare beneficiaries into its Medicare Advantage plans.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has led a major effort to eliminate identity-based considerations in employment, signing an executive order in January directing all federal agencies to “enforce our long-standing civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.” DOJ has opened civil probes into several companies’ DEI practices, but there is no record of insurance companies being among those investigated.

There is no single cause of the spike in healthcare costs, and both Democrats and Republicans are racing to propose solutions to address affordability ahead of the midterms.

However, Hild said the pattern across the industry suggests insurers are failing to sufficiently prioritize affordability and patient care.

“Families are paying more than ever for insurance that often fails them when they need it most,” Hild said. “Instead of working to improve the system for consumers, insurance companies are diverting resources to political agendas that do nothing to improve health care or affordability.”

The CEOs of UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, Elevance Health, Cigna Group and Ascendiun are scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee as lawmakers examine the role insurers play in healthcare affordability.

UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health and Elevance Health did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.