Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Steve Hemsley, the Chief Executive Officer and a Director of UnitedHealth Group. As Chief Executive Officer, I have the privilege of calling this meeting to order and welcoming all of you to our 2017 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Before proceeding to the business of the meeting, I'm pleased to introduce our Board members in attendance at the meeting this morning. Tim Flynn, Michelle Hooper, Roger Lawson, Glenn Renwick, Doctor.
Ken Shine and Doctor. Gail Walensky. I'm also pleased to introduce the following members of the Office of the Chief Executive. John Rex, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Larry Renfro, Vice Chairman, UnitedHealth Group and Chief Executive Officer of Optum Maryann Short, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Dave Whitman, President of UnitedHealth Group and Ellen Wilson, Executive Vice President, Human Capital. At this time, I also would like to introduce Taryn Lynch and John Neary, representatives of Deloitte and Touche.
I will act as chair of the annual meeting and Danette Smith will act as secretary for this meeting. We'll now proceed to the formal meeting. I'll ask Annette to conduct the formal portion of the meeting.
Thank you, Steve. We've made available to you this morning an agenda for the meeting as well as guidelines and procedures to be followed during the course of the meeting. In the interest of openness and fairness to all shareholders attending today's meeting, we will follow these guidelines and complete the formal business in accordance with these procedures. Following the conclusion of the meeting and the presentation that follows, there will be an opportunity for shareholders to ask questions. We ask that comments, statements or questions be relevant to the company's business.
In order to give as many shareholders as possible the opportunity to speak, we ask that your remarks and questions be brief. We call this meeting to order pursuant to notice made available on or about April 21, 2017, to each shareholder of record on April 11, 2017. I have copies of the notice of the annual meeting, the 2017 proxy statement, the form of proxy for the meeting and the annual report. I also have the affidavit from Broadridge Financial Solutions showing that these documents or a notice of Internet availability were provided to all shareholders entitled to notice of the meeting. All of these documents will be filed with the records of the meeting.
Carl Hedberg of C. T. Hedberg LLC has been appointed as Inspector of Election for this annual meeting. He's sitting in the back and standing for you. As the Inspector of Election, Mr.
Hedberg will inspect the votes during the meeting and will inform us of the preliminary results of the votes cast. Mr. Hedberg has taken and signed an oath to execute faithfully the duties of Inspector of Election with strict impartiality and according to the best of his abilities. His oath will be filed with the records of the meeting. The record date fixed by the Board of Directors for the determination of shareholders entitled to receive notice and vote at this meeting was the close of business on April 11, 2017.
As of that date, the company had outstanding 96 4,110,164 shares of common stock, the only class of stock issued and outstanding. Each share is entitled to one vote. Mr. Hagberg has a list of the holders of record of the company's common stock entitled to vote at the meeting. The list has been certified by an officer of Wells Fargo Shareowner Services, the company's transfer agent.
The list of holders of record will be kept open during this meeting and is available for inspection by any shareholder. There are represented at the meeting either in person or by proxy 871,992,506 shares of common stock out of a total of 964,110,164 shares of common stock outstanding on the record date. Therefore, a quorum is present. It is declared that the meeting is duly constituted, has been duly convened and is ready to proceed with the transaction of business. At this time, I declare the polls to be open for voting on all of the items of business for this meeting.
If you wish to vote and have not already done so, please proceed to the Inspector of Election table located at the back with Mr. Hagberg. If you have previously voted by there are 5 items of business for today's meeting. The first item of business is to elect Bill Ballard, Richard Burke, Tim Flynn, Steve Hemsley, Michelle Hooper, Roger Lawson, Glenn Renwick, Ken Shine and Gail Walensky to serve as Directors of the company. The second item of business is to consider and vote on a proposal relating to the advisory approval of the company's executive compensation.
The third item of business is to consider and vote on an advisory proposal regarding the frequency of holding future the appointment of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. The 5th item of business is to consider and vote on a shareholder proposal requesting additional lobbying disclosure, which was included in our 20 Madden, would you please present the proposal at the microphone?
Good morning, fellow shareholders and members of the Board. My name is Mary Ellen Madden, and on behalf of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, I hereby move Proposal 5 asking our company to provide a report on its state and federal lobbying expenditures including indirect funding of lobbying through trade associations. UnitedHealth has spent over $21,000,000 since 2010 on federal lobbying, including $1,700,000 so far in 2017. And there is incomplete disclosure about spending at the state level where our company also lobbies extensively reportedly in at least 43 different states. UnitedHealth argues that producing a lobbying report would be redundant with existing state disclosure requirements.
But this is a gratuitous argument, as finding comprehensive state lobbying information in 43 different states has been described by an expert as nearly impossible. UnitedHealth is required to report all of its lobbying and has this information. So compiling its lobbying in a report would be done very easily. Corporations contribute 1,000,000 to trade associations that lobby indirectly on their behalf without specific disclosure or accountability. For example, UnitedHealth is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, which has spent more than $1,300,000 on lobbying since 1998.
For the first time, UnitedHealth has disclosed its trade association memberships and any portions of its dues used to lobby in its 2016 political contributions report. We believe this is a positive development. However, there are several problems with this. One, this disclosure fails to capture many significant trade association memberships. Through research, we found 12 significant trade associations where our company belongs that are not disclosed, including serving on the Board of the National Association of Manufacturers.
A second problem is that the 2016 disclosure only captures trade association dues. Disclosure of just dues leaves a loophole and fails to capture all payments to trade associations. So if UnitedHealth made a $1,000,000 special payment to the Chamber on top of its dues to use for lobbying, UnitedHealth's disclosure regime would not capture this because the payment would not qualify as dues. This has happened here before when our company was part of a group that secretly gave the chamber $86,000,000 to oppose the Affordable Care Act in 2,009. Finally, there is no written policy to disclose trade association memberships payments and the portions used for lobbying going forward.
Without a clear system ensuring accountability, corporate assets can be used to promote public policy objectives, which may pose risks. For example, UnitedHealth supports smoking cessation, yet the Chamber of Commerce actively fights global tobacco regulation. How does this incongruity match our company's principles? Investors believe companies need to disclose what process is in place to manage this type of issue non alignment. Proxy Advisor ISS supports this proposal, noting that additional disclosure would help shareholders better assess the risks and benefits associated with the company's participation in the public policy process.
We urge shareholders to vote for this proposal. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ms. Madden. The shareholder proposal will be approved if holders of a majority of our shares of common stock present vote for the proposal. Under Delaware law, abstentions have the effect of a vote against the proposal and broker non votes have no effect. Has everyone who wishes to vote had a chance to do so?
Okay. We typically do questions at the end of Steve's presentation. Okay. Thank you, though. Seeing that all shareholders who wish to vote have had a chance to do so, I declare the polls to be officially closed for voting on all of the items of business for the annual meeting.
Based on the tabulation of the proxy and ballots, the Inspector of Election preliminarily reports the following. The total number of shares of common stock represented either in person or by proxy at this meeting was 871,992,005 106 shares. Over 92% of the votes cast elected the 9 director nominees. Therefore, all 9 director nominees have been elected to the Board. Over 96% of the votes cast voted for advisory approval of the company's executive compensation.
Over 91% of the votes cast voted for advisory approval of holding future say on pay votes every year. Over 98% of shares present ratified the appointment of Deloitte and Touche Shell LP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2017. Therefore, the proposal passes. Only 23% of the shares present voted for the shareholder proposal requesting additional lobbying disclosure. Therefore, the proposal did not pass.
The final report of the Inspector of Election with the final tabulation will be filed with the records of the meeting and the final results will be reported in a Form 8 ks by June 9, 2017. There being no further business to come before the meeting in accordance with the company's bylaws, the 2017 Annual Meeting of Shareholders is now concluded, and I hereby declare the 2017 Annual Meeting of Shareholders adjourned. Now Steve Hemsley will talk with you about our business. I would like to remind you that portions of Steve's remarks, which are not historical in nature, may be forward looking statements made under the protection of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Our actual results may differ materially from those statements, and the factors that could cause the results to differ materially can be found in the cautionary statement section of our 10 ks and 10 Qs.
Good morning again. Welcome and thank you for joining us this morning. Just a few brief comments. We kind of meet again once again at a time of change, kind of recognizing that it is always a time of change in healthcare and that as an enterprise we are very consciously built for that reality. The track record of UnitedHealth Group, Optum and UnitedHealthcare for consistently growing and delivering ever higher value in healthcare is rooted in our ability to successfully change and adapt in serving the socially sensitive and ever changing marketplace.
So it should not be surprising the profile of this enterprise is profoundly different today than it was just 10 years ago. We're certainly larger with revenues this year estimated to exceed $200,000,000,000 and an exceptional dedicated and growing workforce of more than 260,000 people. But the key remains our commitment to mission and the quality of our work, the positive experience and value we drive on behalf of our consumers and customers every day. That's why UnitedHealthcare's growth has outpaced all competitors over the last 6 years. And during that same time, Optum has emerged as a leading force for enabling the entire healthcare sector.
Today, UnitedHealth Group is far more diversified and engaged in virtually every aspect of healthcare. We're more mature as an organization, working in a far more complex world and we're becoming a more global company with presence in well more than 100 nations, although we are still early in our global ambitions. And you can be sure we will look different again 10 years from now because healthcare will continue to evolve as the society is challenged to deliver ever better and more consistent care with greater affordability for more people. That basic challenge has been driving efforts to reform healthcare since the late 1960s and through passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act and it remains the force behind today's active healthcare policy debates as well. These challenges are driving us to accelerate efforts to innovate, to apply the latest technologies and data sciences disciplines, to shape more connected, smarter and more effective approaches to deliver value and paying for healthcare.
UnitedHealth Group is built for change. We are a mission driven company, dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and helping to make the healthcare system work better for everyone. Underlying this mission is a vibrant culture of shared beliefs and values, integrity, compassion, innovation, relationships and performance beyond just financial terms. These are the character measures we use to apply and to assess who we are as an enterprise and how we measure our performance as an enterprise. So as we meet today, our businesses are well positioned and performing strongly.
We have good visibility over the balance of 2017 and into 2018. We are taking consistently strong steps towards a market rate dividend and we have clear line of sight to debt to total capitalization levels returning to 40% by the end of this year. We have an exceptional leadership team in place with more change to come. We are today continuing to develop a strong and distinctive board. We are looking to the future with conviction around themes discussed in our Investor Day back in December, a future in which the consumer, modern technology, applied data science, value based approaches combined to elevate performance in healthcare, fueling change and benefiting both the consumer and the system as a whole.
We believe the next 10 years holds even more opportunity than the last 10. We will be directing our leadership, our capital and our energies to fulfilling the full potential UnitedHealth Group has to offer. So we thank you and I would like to open the floor for questions. Do we have a question?
Good morning. My name is Sister Gwen Fari and we are members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. And I've been asked to ask these questions on behalf of shareholders from that group. And the question
is
for Director, Doctor. Gail Walensky, who is Chair of the Public Policy Committee. Doctor. Walensky, our company claims to disclose its trade associations that received $50,000 in its 2016 political contributions report and lists amounts of dues paid and the non deductible portions of those dues used for lobbying. The report lists 11 trade associate memberships, including the Chamber of Commerce.
Yet this fails to capture many significant trade association memberships which is problematic. Through research, we found 12 significant trade associations where United Health belongs that are not disclosed. My question, are companies dues to the National Association of Manufacturers less than $50,000 If we can look and find 12 trade associations that weren't disclosed, how can shareholders be assured that our company is providing full and comprehensive disclosure? There's a kind of does the 2016 trade association disclosure include all payments to trade associations and not only dues payments. If it's only capturing dues and not all payments that leaves a troublesome loophole.
Although our company disclosed trade association information in its 2016 political contributions report, there is no written policy to disclose trade association memberships, payments and the portions used for lobbying in our company's official political contribution policy, which was last updated in 2011. Will our company commit to adopt a formal trade association disclosure policy in its political contributions policy?
Thank you for asking the question. It was related to the shareholder proposal that we just heard reported out. Our physicians are well documented on this. The company, complies more than what the requirements and letter of the law in terms of disclosures. And only those areas that are well beyond that are now being addressed.
We have had votes in the last 3 years requesting that we provide even more than we do, which is even more than the federal and state laws require. And in each year, including in this year, as we just heard, it was 23% support, which means 77 percent against that. At least 75% of the shareholders have not supported the notion that we go even beyond where we are now, which is again beyond the requirements of both the federal and state government. So we hope that addresses your concern, but we are always glad to continue these discussions.
Thank you. Questions on any other subjects? Well, with that, I again thank you for your attendance. Appreciate very much you are being with us and your interest in our enterprise. And we will endeavor to continue to perform strongly through the course of this year and the next we'll see next year.