“UnitedHealthcare earnings continue to be weighted approximately 75% to the first half of the year.”

In context

“Wayne DeVeydt: Thank you, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. I will briefly review second quarter results, discuss expectations for the remainder of the year as we refresh our 2026 guidance. Overall, the quarter and full-year outlook reflect improved performance across our businesses, with notable improvements in UnitedHealthcare and Optum Health. UnitedHealth Group reported adjusted earnings per share of $6.38, compared to $4.08 in the prior year. Total revenues were $112 billion, largely consistent with the prior year, while operating earnings of $8 billion grew 55% year-over-year. This improvement reflects product and portfolio actions taken over the past 12 months, along with more focused and consistent management disciplines. Turning to medical costs. Our reported medical care ratio of 86.7% includes $860 million of net favorable prior period medical development, the majority of which is in-year development. This compares to 89.4% in 2Q 2025. Days claims payable was 47 days, up approximately 2.5 days from a year ago. The operating cost ratio was 12.7% for the quarter, compared to 12.3% a year ago, as we continue to focus on operating discipline while making targeted investments across technology, AI, care delivery enhancements, customer experience, and advancing healthier communities through the United Health Foundation. Moving to cash flows and our balance sheet. Operating cash flows in the quarter were approximately $11 billion, or 1.9 times net income, reflecting timing of substantial government payments and strong earnings. This provides capital to strengthen the balance sheet, invest in growth, and return value to shareholders. Through mid-July, we have deployed $4 billion for repurchases of 11.4 million shares. We now expect to complete total share repurchases of at least $5 billion in 2026, compared to initial guidance of $2.5 billion. During the quarter, we returned $2.1 billion to shareholders through our dividend, which our board increased to $9.28 per share on an annualized basis. Lastly, on July 2nd, we successfully closed the previously announced combination with Alegeus. Our debt to capital ratio was 41.2% at the end of the quarter, compared to 44.1% one year ago, and 170 basis point sequential improvement from the first quarter of this year. We remain on track to reduce our debt to capital ratio to approximately 40% by the end of 2026. As you saw earlier this morning, we have updated our full year 2026 guidance to reflect performance through the first half of the year and a more mature understanding of expected membership mix and utilization patterns for the remaining six months. We continue to be respectful of medical trend, and we believe this refreshed outlook appropriately balances risk and investments with durable run rate earnings. A few areas of this outlook to highlight. We're providing new adjusted earnings per share guidance range of $19.50 to $20, with slightly more earnings in 3Q relative to 4Q. We are increasing the full-year operating earnings outlook for UnitedHealthcare to at least $12 billion and for Optum Health to at least $2.2 billion. These changes reflect operational improvement underway across the enterprise. We now expect a full-year medical care ratio of 88.1% ± 25 basis points. We expect the operating cost ratio to come in at the higher end of our previously discussed range as a result of investments in our people, communities, and AI. The overall earnings cadence for the year remains consistent with prior expectations. UnitedHealthcare earnings continue to be weighted approximately 75% to the first half of the year. Similarly, we expect nearly all of Optum Health's earnings to be recognized in the first half, with modest profit in Q3, offset by modest losses in the fourth quarter due to the seasonality of the risk-based businesses. In contrast, Optum Insight and Optum Rx remain more heavily weighted towards the second half of the year, with each expected to generate approximately 55% of their full-year earnings during the back half as client implementations, growth investments, and normal business seasonality progress through the year. Overall, we're seeing a two-thirds, one-third first half to back half mix. Steve, back to you.”