UnitedHealth Loses Defamation Suit Over Honest Telling of Forsaking Oldsters’ DNR Wishes for Bottom Line

A Delaware judge has dismissed insurance giant UnitedHealth’s defamation lawsuit against the Guardian, finding that a bombshell report into a secretive practice of paying bonuses to nursing homes to limit hospital transfers was “substantially true.”The defamation lawsuit stemmed from a May 2025 report published by the Guardian that disclosed UnitedHealthGroup’s pattern of paying nursing homes thousands of dollars in bonuses to limit hospital transfers in an attempt to cut costs. The report centered on UnitedHealth’s Optum unit, which places employees in nursing homes to help manage members’ care. The report cited current and former UnitedHealth practitioners who told the Guardian that they were pressured to change Medicare Advantage members’ “code status” to “do not resuscitate,” even though the patients had expressed a desire to live. The Guardian said the cuts saved UnitedHealth “millions,” but “at times risked residents’ health.”UnitedHealth criticized what it said were “verifiably false” claims in the report. It said the bonuses help to prevent what it called costly and unnecessary hospitalizations and pushed back on the notion that its operations were improper. It also noted that the Justice Department investigated the claims and “declined to pursue the matter.” The health insurer sued the Guardian, claiming the article created a false impression about its operations.However, on Monday, a Delaware Superior Court judge, Calvin Scott, dismissed all six of the claims in the defamation lawsuit. He said that for a large corporation such as UnitedHealth to prove defamation, it would have to show that the Guardian’s claims were knowingly false and would have harmed the company. “The article’s reporting of the bonuses as ‘secret’ or made ‘secretly’ or ‘quietly,’ is substantially true,” Judge Scott wrote. He said that there was not a meaningful difference between the Guardian labeling the contracts secret and UnitedHealth describing the payments as “not publicly disclosed.”The health insurer also accused the Guardian of leaving out details in its article. It noted that the outlet did not report an incident where one of its employees urged a nursing home to transfer a patient to the hospital. However, Judge Scott said that even if that information was included, it would not have influenced the “average reader.”“Even drawing all reasonable inferences in United’s favor, if the truth was written in the article as it is alleged in the complaint, it would not have a different effect on the average reader,” Judge Scott wrote.The judge added, “The complaint does not allege that these statements are false, only that the omissions regarding United-employee involvement created a false impression.”“The Guardian U.S., however, is not required to publish facts just because United would have preferred more favorable facts,” he said.Judge Scott also rejected UnitedHealth’s claim that the Guardian article insisted it was pressuring employees to switch patients’ status to DNR so that it could save money. “Nothing in the article states that United was approaching [patients] and telling them to change their code status so [UnitedHealth] could save money,” Judge Scott wrote. The judge said that the article said the pressure was landing on employees. The article did not explicitly state that UnitedHealth was pushing practitioners to switch patients’ codes to save money. It cited an unnamed current nurse practitioner who said the company was “pretending to make it look like [switch to DNR] in the best interest of the member” when “it’s really not.”The Guardian US’s general counsel, Kai Falkenberg, celebrated the ruling, saying in a statement, “We are delighted that Judge Scott has granted all of the Guardian’s motions to dismiss UnitedHealth’s lawsuit on the merits, a resounding victory for factual reporting and the First Amendment.”The report into UnitedHealth’s practices came at a sensitive time for the insurer, as it was published months after the fatal shooting of its CEO, Brian Thompson, in December 2024 led to renewed scrutiny over the company’s denial of care to patients. UnitedHealth is also facing an investigation led by Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden into allegations that nursing home residents died after Optum either delayed or denied their transfer to a hospital. The senators noted that a wrongful death lawsuit alleges a 70-year-old woman died after an Optum employee developed a plan to treat the woman — who suffered a head injury from a fall and had low oxygen levels — at the nursing home facility instead of at a hospital. The lawmakers say UnitedHealth provided “brief answers” to some of their questions, but “failed to include requested documentation about hospitalization policies, bonus programs or a list of contracted nursing homes.”UnitedHealth did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

UnitedHealth Loses Defamation Suit Over Honest Telling of Forsaking Oldsters’ DNR Wishes for Bottom Line

UnitedHealth Loses Defamation Suit Over Honest Telling of Forsaking Oldsters’ DNR Wishes for Bottom Line

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