Larry, David Ellison catch strays in John Oliver’s brutal takedown of UnitedHealthcare: ‘My soon-to-be business daddy has a literal business daddy’
‘I would never make fun of you...’
John Oliver returned to the desk of Last Week Tonight after his summer hiatus with a sharp focus on the massive operations of UnitedHealth Group. According to Variety, the host used his return to address the company’s controversial history of denying medical claims. This scrutiny arrives as the nation prepares for the December sentencing of Luigi Mangione. Mangione pleaded guilty to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024.
The incident took place outside a conference of health insurance executives in Manhattan, Oliver noted, saying the event was notably not met with universal sympathy. Many Americans feel intense frustration with the insurer. A poll conducted after the shooting showed 69% of respondents blamed insurance company coverage denials for the incident.
UnitedHealth Group functions as a massive corporate behemoth, Oliver said, per The Guardian. It brought in $447 billion in 2025 making it the third-largest company in the United States. It sits behind only Walmart and Amazon while staying ahead of Apple. The scale of this operation is almost unimaginably massive. The company serves over 50 million people.
UnitedHealth Group controls subsidiaries across nearly every sector of the healthcare system
Oliver described the firm as a collection of algorithmically driven, ruthless arbiters of who lives and who dies. He highlighted how telling UnitedHealthcare to go f— itself has become an entire genre of internet video on platforms like TikTok. The host highlighted several cases where patients faced extreme hurdles to receive care. One family struggled to get coverage for a bathing chair for their disabled daughter, Emmy.
An insurance representative suggested the mother wipe down the child instead of providing the chair. The parents eventually paid for the equipment with community donations after the insurer refused to help. Oliver noted that having insurance often looks an awful lot like not having it. Patients pay premiums but still struggle to afford basic medical needs.
Another case involved a young woman battling cervical cancer. Six individual oncologists recommended proton therapy for her treatment. UnitedHealthcare denied the coverage by claiming it surpassed the standard of care. Her parents eventually paid $95,000 out of pocket to secure the treatment. The therapy was successful, but the financial burden remained high.
Oliver used this moment to take a dig at the incoming leadership of his own network
He noted that access to wealthy parents cannot be the system to get badly-needed healthcare. The host specifically pointed to David Ellison, the son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. David Ellison is the new head of Paramount Skydance and is currently leading an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. This deal will soon make him in charge of HBO. Oliver showed a photo of the two men on screen.
The host joked that his ‘soon-to-be business daddy has a literal business daddy’. He deadpanned that he deeply respects that connection and would never make fun of it. Then, he contrasted this with the approach of former late night host Stephen Colbert. He referenced the cancellation of Colbert’s show on CBS as the company sought approval for the merger. Oliver recently renewed his contract through 2027 in anticipation of this corporate transition.
The scope of UnitedHealth Group extends far beyond simple insurance. The company pursues vertical integration across the industry. It maintains roughly 2,700 subsidiaries. These include primary care clinics, surgical centers, and pharmacies.
It even operates its own bank known as Optum Bank. This institution holds over $20.8bn in assets. Oliver described this structure as a massive data-sharing panopticon. The company often spends money on entities that are part of its own corporate family. This allows it to sit on both sides of billions of dollars in transactions.
Oliver also examined the practices of OptumRx
OptumRx is the pharmacy benefit manager for the insurance arm. The company has a history of abruptly switching which drugs it covers for patients. Oliver shared the story of Cole Schmidtknecht, a 22-year-old in Wisconsin. The man suffered from severe asthma and relied on an Advair inhaler.
The price for this medication jumped from $66 to over $539 after OptumRx dropped coverage. The father explained that his son had to choose between the medicine and other bills. Cole walked out of the pharmacy without the inhaler. He experienced a fatal asthma attack shortly after that decision.
The host expressed clear frustration regarding this preventable loss of life. He argued that the current system forces people to walk away from life-saving medicine. Oliver stated that the country should not allow UnitedHealth Group to exist in its current form. He highlighted a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley. The legislation would separate the payer and provider roles in healthcare.
While he admitted this does not go far enough, he called it a start. Oliver concluded that everyone except the company wants the system to work differently. He views these firms as pointless time-wasting middlemen that act with ruthless indifference.
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