New York Times Details Examiner’s Run-In With UnitedHealth/Optum
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
Over the weekend, The Examiner was included in a front-page New York Times investigation into how UnitedHealth Group has attempted to silence its critics.
In March of last year, after we published a report on billing practices at Optum Medical Care, a UnitedHealth subsidiary, we received legal letters demanding we destroy source material used in our reporting.
As part of that coverage, we briefly and inadvertently uploaded a longer version of an audio recording than intended. The error was corrected quickly. The audio that remained published did not include any protected health information.
“While we do not know which current or former Optum employee disclosed the patient information to you, such disclosure is subject to both civil and criminal penalties, and under federal law it is a crime for a person to aid and abet another in obtaining or disclosing individual identifiable health information without authorization,” a portion of a March 26, 2024 letter from the company stated.
The Examiner declined Optum’s demand. Optum insisted again. The Examiner declined again.
“We continue to decline to destroy our newsgathering materials, but please rest assured that we have no intention of publishing any protected health information,” one of our responses stated.
At the time, we decided to keep the focus on our reporting about the challenges patients and healthcare workers face with corporate medical care, rather than shift attention to our dispute and risk distracting from those concerns.
But last month a New York Times journalist reached out, having independently learned of our experience. The Times placed it into a broader national context: a pattern of legal pressure used by UnitedHealth to discourage criticism.
We’re sharing this now because it has become part of the public record — and because it reflects the climate in which journalism sometimes must operate.
Read the full New York Times report here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/12/business/unitedhealth-insurance-criticism.html
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.