U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan last week rallied outside an Optum Primary Care facility here, accusing the health care giant of driving up costs, degrading patient care and forcing independent doctors and pharmacies out of business across the Hudson Valley.

Ryan, D-NY, spoke outside the Optum clinic at 264 Main Street, flanked by patients, nurses and health care workers who described what they called a pattern of deteriorating service since Optum — a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group — acquired regional medical practices including CareMount and Crystal Run.

“We are, I fear, the canaries in the coal mine,” Ryan said. “What they are doing here is the playbook of putting out of business our community pharmacies, buying up our physician practices, driving up costs, lowering the quality of service and now refusing to accept more and more providers who aren’t United Health Care providers. That playbook is happening here and I believe has already been deadly and will only get worse.”

Ryan said Optum has spent recent years consolidating Hudson Valley medical practices, resulting in billing problems, poor treatment of staff and the rejection of lower-cost insurance plans — a move he said effectively steers patients toward UnitedHealth Group coverage. He praised frontline health care workers while directing his criticism at corporate leadership, saying executives are “making life more difficult for everyone in the process.”

Earlier this year Ryan introduced the Patients Over Profits Act, which he said is designed to break up consolidation among large health care companies to reduce costs and improve care.

Several community members shared personal accounts at the press conference.
Barbara Scott said an Optum physician refused to examine her, and a second performed a biopsy she described as botched, leaving her bleeding. She was later diagnosed with cancer, left Optum and received treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where she said she is now cancer-free.

A 25-year-old woman identified only as Melissa said it took nearly two years after college graduation to secure an appointment through Optum, only to learn the company had dropped her insurance. She noted the added irony that she is a medical student at an institution affiliated with Optum.

Sandy Oxford, a political and community organizer for the New York State Nurses Association, said Optum’s consolidation is limiting access to care across the region. Oxford read a statement from Christine Evans, a board member and nurse: Optum “has dramatically worsened care and working conditions in the region, at CareMount and at Crystal Run after taking over,” Evans wrote, adding that “profit-driven consolidation” must be replaced with “quality affordable health care for all."

An Optum employee who gave only her first name, Lisa, said the company’s strategy since its 2021 take-over has been to cut staff and increase workloads. “They are doing away with nurses and want us to do double and triple the work for the same salary,” she said. “It’s profit over patients.”

Ryan also called for broader health care reform, saying universal coverage should be the long-term goal. As a near-term step, he advocated lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55, arguing it would benefit both workers and small businesses burdened by employee insurance costs.

Ryan tied the Optum situation to the federal budget debate, saying the Republican-backed reconciliation package — which he called the “Big Beautiful Bill” — would cut $1.3 trillion from nutrition assistance, health care programs and climate investments to fund $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for high-income earners. He said the cuts would increase demand for care while reducing the resources available to provide it.

“The goal here today is to speak out and elevate the voices in our community who are experiencing the harms and the costs and the pain of the decisions of United Health Care and Optum to put profits over all else,” Ryan said.
Optum did not respond to a request for comment.