“We continue to expect approximately 2/3 of earnings in the first half of the year and the remaining 1/3 in the second half.”

In context

“he United Health Foundation. Our intention is to improve the focus and discipline of our core operations while using proceeds from nonrecurring gains to further advance our mission by helping build healthier communities and a robust health care workforce. In addition, at Optum Health, we had the positive impact of the lost contract, offset by the final true-up of losses related to assets, which were held for sale as of December and divested during the first quarter. While it is still early in the year, we've updated our full year outlook to greater than $18.25 per share. This refresh view balances the performance we saw in the first quarter with a prudent level of patience to see how the remaining months evolve. Our earnings cadence for the year remains consistent with prior expectations. We continue to expect approximately 2/3 of earnings in the first half of the year and the remaining 1/3 in the second half. That said, the earnings profile varies meaningfully across the portfolio. UnitedHealthcare earnings are over 75% weighted to the first half of the year. Similarly, for Optum Health, we expect earnings to moderate throughout the year from Q1 levels with a significant majority of full year reported earnings occurring in the first half. In contrast, Optum Insight and Optum Rx are more naturally weighted to the back half with each generating approximately 60% of earnings in the second half. This pattern also similarly influences the progression of our medical cost ratio with first half levels more than 250 basis points below the midpoint of our full year guidance and second half levels more than 200 basis points above. Overall, this has been a strong start to the year as we continue to improv”