The MAHA Summit Invites Health Insurers to the Discussion, and the Faithful Aren't Happy About It

Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and MI Democrat U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed are not the only ones attempting to hijack the MAHA movement. Health insurance providers UnitedHealth Group, Elevance Health, and AHIP ponied up as sponsors for Tuesday's MAHA Summit, in order to have a seat at the table.

At a gathering featuring Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vice President JD Vance and top administration health officials, the agenda included topics such as artificial intelligence, bolstering access to health data, psychedelic drugs, peptide therapies, food supply innovation and longevity science.

It also featured heavy hitters from the hospital and insurance industries, both of which have been criticized for their role in making health care more expensive.

Interesting speakers at the MAHA Conference.

Probably nothing. https://t.co/3j9nTORFD5 pic.twitter.com/MndwekfMvl

— Heath Veuleman (@HeathVeuleman) September 28, 2026

Some of the original movement adherents and MAHA faithful are none too pleased. Dr. Robert Malone, who was part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's vaccine advisory panel, took to Substack to decry, "The Capture of MAHA." Malone said he was "genuinely taken aback by a who's who of corporate interests on the summit agenda."

We all thought MAHA was founded to challenge entrenched interests. It has somehow convened a panel on medical affordability dominated by the insurance industry itself, while the physicians and patients who live under that system have been completely excluded from the discussion.

Malone further stated, "MAHA was supposed to expose the revolving door between money, industry and government, not build its own."

Read the list of speakers and weep- MAHA-gov and MAHA-inc have completely divorced themselves from the health freedom movement.
This is sickening. https://t.co/OCMh60vD6l

— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) September 28, 2026

Apart from the significant amount of side eyes, the "Affordability First" panel discussion provided a window into their motivations in wanting to be in MAHA's proximity. Alec Aramanda, Principal Deputy Director, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), moderated the discussion which covered the topic of affordability and how the use of AI and the providers' partnership with CMS against fraud, waste, and abuse, will help to drive down costs for the consumer. 

At least, that is the hope. Representing the insurance industry was Dr. Catherine Gaffigan, President of Health Solutions for Elevance Health, AHIP President and CEO Mike Tuffin, and Dr. Wyatt Decker, Chief Physician, Value-Based Care and Innovation for UnitedHealth Group 

Aramanda opened with the roughly five trillion the United States spends on healthcare, taking up 18 percent of the gross domestic product. Aramanda also discussed how healthcare expenses are costly in more ways than one, and affect individuals, family, and the nation in terms of time, energy, and resources. Resources and time that could be poured into other endeavors. 

Aramanda put a fine point on all this by drawing a bright line between ballooning healthcare costs, and what he called the creation of "Frankenstein policies," like single-payer and Medicare for All to address the problem. 

Aramanda warned:

The stakes are very high if we do not get this right. The crux of this all is this idea of public trust: And I know, going back to the pandemic and the response, a lot of our healthcare institutions not just eroded the trust, but it revealed a significant gap in their credibility over the last few years.

Aramanda dived into the question of how the providers planned to address affordability. AHIP's Mike Tuffin reassured the audience that, "I want to be very clear: Health plans share the frustration about the performance of the healthcare system. Healthcare cost too much, the system is fragmented, and it's complex and challenging to navigate."

Tuffin was merely echoing what most Americans know intimately. It's a system that not only drives sickness, but often fuels it.

Tuffin did hone in on how AHIP planned to address the issue of prior authorization. Despite customers surveyed ranking this among their chief complaints, Tuffin claimed, 

Prior authorization is very selectively used. But we understand the experience around prior authorization can be frustrating for people. They're in the physician's office, they're there at the point of vulnerability, and they may get a delayed answer. Or they may get tied up in paperwork.

We are working to fix that. Because it's really important that we maintain this safeguard. There's so much work being done in the administration on fraud, waste, and abuse. And all the experts agree that roughly 25 percent of care delivered in the U.S. is wasteful at best and harmful at worst. 

So, we need to maintain safeguards to make sure people are getting evidence-based care, but we need to modernize that experience. And so we've come together as an industry to make commitments to improve that experience.

But Tuffin did not go into specifics on how this commitment looked, simply more blue sky language that the industry is committed to improving the prior authorization process.

Our vision, our vision is that patients and their doctors get the answer that they need at the point of care, in a seamless way that's invisible to the patient as often as possible. That's the vision that we're working toward in the industry, and it's going to take a lot of partnership for that vision to be fulfilled.

Because as hard as it is to believe in 2026, half the prior authorization comes in manually. Usually via fax machine. So we say, outlaw the fax machine in healthcare. Abolish the paper. Make all of us participate in a real-time digital system.

Elevance's Dr. Catherine Gaffigan did no better in articulating her company's plans on tackling affordability. 

When I think about just... our responsibility. You know, health plans have a distinct responsibility to be a part of the solution here when it comes to cost and affordability. And, you know, to Mike's point, it's not just about affordability but also experience. And just simplifying that experience. So, we're really working hard to take advantage of this opportunity that we have, whether it's just improved technology,  etcetera, to just reduce the friction. Right? Because we do have, I feel, a foundational responsibility to ensure that patients get the right care safely, at the right place and at the right time. And that does sometimes require prior authorization, but it's gotta be a way better experience, so that's what we're working on. How do we reduce that friction, get to a real-time answer as often as possible and just make it simpler for folks.

The doctor seems to have attended the same Word Salad school as our former Vice President Kamala Harris. In terms of actual clarity of thought, Dr. Wyatt Decker of UnitedHealth Group rivaled them both. He said:

This is... super key points have been made. I would say, while we're working to address these friction points, which we are, and Mike touched on many of them as did Catherine. I think also, reinengineering the healthcare experience to get upstream of chronic diseases. We're a nation of chronic diseases, it accounts for about 90 percent of our five-plus trillion dollars is spent on chronic diseases. Why?

Well, I'm an emergency physician. And our nation's overcrowded emergency departments, they're full of people that  weren't diagnosed or couldn't get access to care when it was not a crisis. So, guess what? now they're in a crisis. Their heart failure has tipped over and now they can't breathe. It's extremely expensive, but it's also a terrible experience. Right?

So, let's get upstream, let's diagnose that early heart failure before it's a crisis, get on appropriate meds, you've actually created better experience with a lower cost and you haven't negotiated or fought with providers.

So, that's kind of, that's our fundamental vision at UnitedHealthcare Group, is let's get upstream of this nation of chronic diseases, and make an impact before it's a crisis.

Aramanda moved the conversation into technology. Specifically, how would the providers use AI to create more affordability for their patients.

Elevance's Dr. Gaffigan led the charge on this one, and actually gave insight into how the work Congress has done to reduce regulation has been helpful. 

I'd really like to thank Congress, because some of the work we're going to do around transparency and reimbursement policy to our providers is based on the work Congress recently did where they asked hospital facilities, from now on, to actually indicate the actual location of the care that was provided. One of the issues that we see, and this is an esoteric billing issue, but it drives costs with no improvement in quality, is this concept of providers, a physician in an office, providing a service to a member, but when it's billed, it's billed as if it was provided at the hospital setting. And so, we really want to address that. That has an impact not just on us, but more importantly, on our members. Our members end up getting two cost shares: one for the physician, and one for a facility that they were never in.

And so, the policies that we announced this morning are really based on that kind of concept. We just, in the end, want to pay for the appropriate care in the appropriate setting, and not waste dollars that should be used otherwise to drive prevention, etcetera.

Dr. Decker illuminated UnitedHealth Group's focus on leveraging technology to reduce costs for the patient.

And just for all of you, contemplate this for a moment: There is no correlation in U.S. healthcare between the price of the service you're paying for and the quality that is delivered. There is no correlation, and that's in the peer-reviewed literature. So, that's kind of profound. So, it means that paying more doesn't get you a better experience necessarily, and it doesn't get you a better outcome, necessarily. So, how should we refocus this system, right? 

And one of the things we're doing which is along this line that Catherine shared, is we're saying, hey, we'll use data and analytics to help our members navigate their healthcare journey. And we'll give them the tools to say, you know what? There's an ambulatory surgical center that can do my surgical procedure, and it's high quality, and if I choose to go there, my out-of-pocket, like, my impact, might be less. And if I'm really adamant that I want to go to a more complex, higher-cost environment, I can do it, but it might cost me a little bit more.

And what we see is that people save up to 45 percent in their total cost of care. And they actually get better experiences. And, It's early yet, but we believe they're going to get better outcomes. So, we can actually do this, like, we can actually make the healthcare experience better. 

AHIP's Tuffin emphasized the provider's stewardship role in protecting customer data and using AI technology to lower cost, while preserving the human connection with the actual patient care. 

We've made a commitment, we're using AI to automate the administration of healthcare benefits. Make it go faster, make it go cheaper. As part of that, we've also said, when it comes to prior authorization, AI can only be used to say, "Yes." If there's an adverse determination or more information is needed, we've committed that a human will be involved.

So, we take this responsibility with data very seriously, and then, you know, on your point about local communities: all healthcare is ultimately delivered by a physician, a nurse, a pharmacist, at the local level. I think it's really important that our industry understand that and support that, and be a part of solutions that acknowledge we live in one of the largest and certainly most diverse countries on earth. And, the solution that works in rural Idaho is unlikely to be the solution that works in Manhattan. And plans need to be responsive to that, and respect that, and build partnerships with providers that acknowledge that and support them.

Dr. Gaffigan informed that Elevance's use of AI is to identify trends and look for signals that could indicate fraudulent use. Gaffigan said, "Our number one priority needs to be rooting out that fraud, waste and abuse."

As a closing discussion, Aramanda asked the providers what investments they were making in ensuring patient affordability, and how did they think it would pay off?

Dr. Decker felt that investing in realigning their role from sick care to actual healthcare is critical.

I think partnering with people and getting upstream is critical. We can actually bend the cost curve of U.S. healthcare and get people with better outcomes and healthier lives by getting upstream.

We spent about seven percent of the U.S. health dollars on prevention and primary care. We need to actually invest more over there so we can spend less downstream. Let's use those AI tools to empower our healthcare providers to identify that early kidney disease, that subtle heart failure. So, let's diagnose it and treat.

Tuffin agreed.

One hundred percent. Most Americans today have access to basic preventative services with no cost-sharing. We do everything we can to encourage our members to utilize those benefits, because that will make them healthier and it ultimately impacts the cost of care.

We are absolute partners in reorienting this system away from responding to illness toward preventing it in the first place.

Dr. Gaffigan felt that encouraging member engagement was Elevance's aim. "We want to be able to help our members engage in health and healthcare differently. That's much more preventative."

It was fairly clear that the providers insistence on being part of the conversation was geared more toward self-interest than any actual desire to see Americans become healthier. None of them discussed any active steps that would assist patients to take control of their own health, rather than be dependent upon a healthcare provider.

With or without MAHA, their bottom line will always be profit over patients. 

You can watch the panel discussion here.

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