UNH · Forward model · Intersegment eliminations · Bull case
What has to happen in Intersegment eliminations
Model as of
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Intersegment eliminations
Optum sells pharmacy care and care delivery to UnitedHealthcare, and the elimination is not an accounting residual to be hidden: at $41.2B it is 27% of gross segment revenue, and UnitedHealth discloses both the Optum-level and the corporate-level component in footnote (a) of every release. It is modelled as its own negative line because there is no disclosed external-revenue split by segment, so pushing it back into the four segments would mean inventing one.
Latest: −$48.98B (2031Q2E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2023Q2 | −$34.56B |
| 2023Q3 | −$35.19B |
| 2023Q4 | −$36.87B |
| 2024Q1 | −$37.63B |
| 2024Q2 | −$39.02B |
| 2024Q3 | −$39.09B |
| 2024Q4 | −$39.54B |
| 2025Q1 | −$40.04B |
| 2025Q2 | −$42.90B |
| 2025Q3 | −$44.33B |
| 2025Q4 | −$45.88B |
| 2026Q1 | −$39.51B |
| 2026Q2 | −$41.15B |
| 2026Q3E | −$41.23B |
| 2026Q4E | −$41.37B |
| 2027Q1E | −$41.54B |
| 2027Q2E | −$41.76B |
| 2027Q3E | −$42.02B |
| 2027Q4E | −$42.31B |
| 2028Q1E | −$42.63B |
| 2028Q2E | −$42.98B |
| 2028Q3E | −$43.36B |
| 2028Q4E | −$43.77B |
| 2029Q1E | −$44.20B |
| 2029Q2E | −$44.65B |
| 2029Q3E | −$45.13B |
| 2029Q4E | −$45.62B |
| 2030Q1E | −$46.14B |
| 2030Q2E | −$46.67B |
| 2030Q3E | −$47.22B |
| 2030Q4E | −$47.79B |
| 2031Q1E | −$48.38B |
| 2031Q2E | −$48.98B |
Assumptions & reasoning
- This vertical's revenue is negative, which the engine handles: a growth driver compounds a negative base without special-casing and the spec imposes no positivity constraint on actuals. It carries no seasonality array, both because the validator requires positive factors and because deseasonalising a negative base would be meaningless.
- Zero margin and zero capex are the right answers rather than placeholders: the four segments' operating earnings sum exactly to consolidated earnings from operations in 2026 Q2 ($3,942M + $1,190M + $1,369M + $1,490M = $7,991M), so consolidated EBITDA is the sum of the four segments' EBITDA with nothing left over for the elimination to carry.
- The stable feature of this line is not a calendar shape but its ratio to gross segment revenue, which has sat between 26.1% and 28.8% across all thirteen quarters and matches the 26.5% implied by the January 2026 guidance ($158,500M of eliminations against $597,500M of gross segment revenue).
- The risk that matters here is a re-cut of intersegment volume - if Optum Rx's fee-based model changes how internal pharmacy revenue is booked, the ratio could step, and a model holding it flat would mis-state consolidated revenue by tens of billions.
- The 2025 Q4 point is the only estimated cell in the whole history: the Optum-level elimination of $1,645M is read from the 1Q26 recast table rather than the 4Q25 release, and the corporate-level $44,231M is derived as UnitedHealthcare $87,113M plus Optum $70,333M less consolidated $113,215M. The total still reconciles exactly to reported consolidated revenue.