Of calling this meeting to order and welcoming all of you to our 2015 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Before proceeding to the business of this meeting, I'm pleased to introduce our board members in attendance at this meeting. Please stand as I call the introductions. Are we waiting for a few? Richard Burke, Non-Executive Chairman of the Board.
He's introducing you guys right now.
I'm the number one.
Yeah.
I think he'll be here shortly. I know he's here. Bill Ballard.
He's right here.
Sorry. I see. I'd like to introduce our members of the board with us today. Richard Burke, Non-Executive Chairman of the board. Bill Ballard. Dr. Edson Bueno. Dr. Bueno is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Amil, our business in Brazil. Bob Darretta. Michele Hooper. Rodger Lawson, just entering here. Rodger. Glenn Renwick.
Wait up then.
Dr. Kenneth I. Shine and Dr. Gail R. Wilensky. We actually have too many of our executives with us from management here today, so I will introduce three who join me in the Office of the Chief Executive. That would be Marianne D. Short, our Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer. David S. Wichmann, our President and Chief Financial Officer, and D. Ellen Wilson, Executive Vice President of Human Capital. At this time, I'd also like to introduce Jeff Black, Janie Herchuk, and Katie Knutson, representatives of Deloitte & Touche. I will act as Chair of the annual meeting, and Dannette L. Smith will act as the Secretary for this meeting. We'll now proceed with the meeting, and I'll ask Dannette to come up and conduct the formal portion. Thank you.
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 the 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 22 April 2015 to each shareholder of record on 2 April 2015.
I have copies of the notice of annual meeting, the 2015 proxy statement, 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 Hagberg of Hagberg & Associates at the back has been appointed Inspector of Election for this annual meeting. As Inspector of Election, Mr. Hagberg will inspect the votes during the meeting and will inform us of the preliminary results of the votes cast. Mr. Hagberg 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 2 April 2015. As of that date, the company had outstanding 951,624,623 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 the meeting and is available for inspection by any shareholder.
There are represented at the meeting, either in person or by proxy, 852,607,866 shares of common stock out of a total of 951,624,623 shares of common stock outstanding on the record date. Therefore, a quorum is present. It is declared that this 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 the items of business for the meeting. If you wish to vote and have not already done so, please proceed to Mr. Hagberg's table located at the back, as we mentioned. If you previously voted by proxy, there is no need to vote by ballot unless you want to change your vote or revoke your proxy.
As described in our proxy statement, there are six items of business for today's meeting. The first item is to elect Bill Ballard, Edson Bueno, Richard Burke, Bob Darretta, Steve Hemsley, Michele Hooper, Rodger Lawson, Glenn Renwick, Ken Shine, and Gail Wilensky to serve as directors of the company. The second item of business is to consider and vote on a proposal relating to advisory approval of the company's executive compensation. The third item of business is to consider and vote on the approval of amendments to the UnitedHealth Group 2011 Stock Incentive Plan. The fourth item of business is to consider and vote on the approval of the reincorporation of the company from Minnesota to Delaware.
The fifth item of business is to consider and vote on a proposal to ratify the appointment of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2015. The sixth item of business is to consider and vote on a shareholder proposal requesting an independent board chair, which was included in our 2015 proxy statement. The shareholder proposal was submitted by John Chevedden. I hereby recognize Tim Smith, representative for John Chevedden. Mr. Smith, would you please pre-present the proposal at the microphone?
Thank you very much. I'm glad to do so. My name is Tim Smith, and as you've heard, I am the proxy for Mr. Chevedden today. I work here in Boston at Walden Asset Management, an investment firm, just up the street. We manage about $8 billion for our clients. I do this resolution moving as a courtesy to Mr. Chevedden. It's important to emphasize that this resolution is a request for the company to institute, which widely considered a best practice, a best practice which you've already embraced, let me hasten to say. We should note that the resolution requests that a policy of a separate independent chair be phased in for when a new CEO is eventually chosen in the future.
It's also a request that our board adopt a bylaw that would require, that this would be required. At present, our company has chosen this option but has the ability also to move simply to a lead director. The irony of voting on this resolution today, of course, is that we already have this practice in place, and we have Mr. Burke serving as in this important role. That's especially important to be noted. I think even though we have these virtually identical positions, I wanna commend the board for embracing this position at present.
Maybe it's useful to quickly rehearse some of the reasons why investors are asking for independent chair, separate independent chair as a best practice, something I issues I think you already embrace. Probably one of the most important is that the role of CEO, and the work of the CEO and the chair are very time-intensive jobs. A separate chair obviously allows for division of labor, frees up time for our CEO to focus on running the company and building effective business strategies while allowing the board to focus on providing independent oversight. Very important reasons that I think you already get value from. I think, conceptually, another reason is the board is responsible for hiring and firing the CEO, as well as deciding his compensation.
Therefore, there is at least a perceived concern by many investors that there is a potential conflict of interest if the CEO and chair are one and the same and oversee their own performance. I know we have an active board that's actively representing shareholders and overseeing the CEO, but that concern is still there. If a CEO runs a board meeting too, there is concern that they might influence, have undue influence over the board's agenda and make the board less effective in addressing any concerns they have. These are the kinds of things you've heard probably before.
There's growing support for separating these positions. A number of countries, such as the U.K., South Africa, it is their norm. It's what they're used to. I think it's important to highlight this because, this resolution, while asking for a particular kind of bylaw amendment, really should be commending the board for already taking a forward-looking policy and appealing to them to continue it going forward. I'll end my remarks on this particular resolution with that comment. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Smith. The shareholder proposal will be approved if holders of a majority of shares of our common stock present vote for the proposal. Under Minnesota law, abstentions have the effect of a vote against, and broker non-votes have no effect. Has everyone who wishes to vote had a chance to do so? 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 proxies and ballots, the Inspector of Election has preliminarily reported the following. The total number of shares of common stock represented either in person or by proxy at this meeting was 852,607,866 shares.
Over 96% of the shares cast elected the 10 director nominees. Therefore, all 10 director nominees have been elected to the board of directors. Over 95% of the shares present voted for advisory approval of the company's executive compensation. Over 91% of the shares present approved the amendments to the 2011 Stock Incentive Plan. Therefore, that proposal passed. Over 88% of the shares present and 73% of the shares outstanding approved the reincorporation of the company from Minnesota to Delaware. Therefore, that proposal passes. Over 98% of the shares present ratified the appointment of Deloitte & Touche as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ended 31 December 2015. Therefore, that proposal also passes. 15% of the shares present voted for the shareholder proposal requesting a policy requiring an independent board chair.
Therefore, that proposal did not pass. The final report of the Inspector of Election with the final tabulation will be filed with the records of this meeting, and the final results will be reported in a Form 8-K by Friday, 5th June 2015. There being no further business to come before the meeting in accordance with the company's bylaws, the 2015 annual meeting of shareholders is now concluded, and I declare the 2015 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 those results to differ materially can be found in the Cautionary Statement section of our 10-K and 10-Q.
Thank you, Dannette. Once again, it's an honor to welcome all of you to this 2015 annual meeting, and we appreciate you joining us today. At the onset, I'd like to make sure I recognize and thank the 185,000 people of this enterprise for delivering outstanding performance in 2014 and for setting the stage for continued growth and innovation in 2015 and beyond. I would also like to point out that Douglas W. Leatherdale, among the founding members of our board, will not join and did not join in today's election. Douglas has retired after many years of distinguished service and exceptional leadership, presiding over and being a key part of the remarkable growth and success of this enterprise.
Our continuing ability to grow is, of course, essential to the vitality of our organization and our ability and commitment to introduce innovative ways to modernize the health system and better serve people, and to continue providing you, our owners, an exceptional return on your investment. Our commitment to growth and innovation is grounded in the drive to do our work distinctively better in critical areas each day. Better engagement with consumers, better and more collaborative relationships with care providers, better enabling technology, better quality care and patient experience, better access for more people, and better and more consistent quality outcomes at lower costs for the system and for the people we serve. We have to continually perform better, delivering new and distinctive values to those that we serve. Our innovative approaches to improving healthcare are gaining remarkable traction.
To offer a few examples, UnitedHealthcare's HouseCalls program combines the human touch of an in-home medical examination with basic preventative care while using sophisticated technology and targeted health education. This service focuses on improving the health and quality of life for seniors and those with chronic health challenges conveniently in the familiar surroundings of their home. The results to date speak to the remarkable success of this program. In a peer review study of diabetic patients, HouseCalls reduced hospital admissions by 9%, same quarter readmissions by 28%, and hospital inpatient days by 19%. This program is really just in its early years. In a second example, we're helping improve the quality of care for the people we serve by paying physicians and care providers based on an incentivized system of quality performance measures for patient experience and positive medical outcomes.
Our work in high-performing physician networks such as these delivers a 29% lower complication rate for implantable cardiac devices, a 41% lower redo rate for knee replacement surgeries, and a 16% lower cost across a wide range of medical specialties. Finally, last year, we introduced two new digital platforms. First, there is Rally, our consumer health platform, which is already providing millions of people with information and incentives to help them make better choices and manage the cost of their healthcare. Today, we are in the process of onboarding 30 million people to Rally. Optum's cloud-based workspace platform for physicians and other care providers is called Link, and it helps modernize the physicians' practices, managing administration and helping deliver better health outcomes more affordably while simplifying their work. Basically, less time for administration and more time for patient care.
We expect 600,000 care providers to be using this payer-agnostic system by the end of this year, early adopters are seeing a savings of approximately 25% of their staff time on just matters like claims follow-up and appeals management alone. This is only a small selection of the work we are doing to support of our mission to help people live healthier lives and to make the healthcare system work better for everyone. We're gonna continue that focus on improving service, responsiveness, innovation, and performance across the enterprise. We believe our financial results on behalf of shareholders are an indication that we're on the right course. At the end of the first quarter of 2015, we advanced our full year outlook, taking revenues to $143 billion, a $2 billion increase and a nearly 10% year-over-year revenue growth pace.
Net per share earnings strengthened to a tighter range of $6.15 to $6.30 per share, an 11% year-over-year gain at the upper end despite absorbing $0.10 per share attributable to the Catamaran merger transaction. In total, we know we're far from performing to our full potential of this enterprise. We're convinced we're firmly on a path that will make healthcare better for people who depend on it and for the professionals who dedicate their lives to it. This kind of better continues to lead our growth and success as a company. We thank you for your attention this morning, and now we'll open the floor up for questions. Yes, sir.
Could you please speak into the microphone so we can hear on the web call?
Steven Tauber, owner of 466 shares. Could you please review for us the advantage of reincorporating in Delaware?
Sure. Delaware is well chronicled for being a progressive state with respect to corporate practices and corporate law, probably the most progressive and active state in those domains. That's why somewhere in the area of 60% of the Fortune 500 are incorporated in Delaware, something like 70% of the Fortune 50. We've just felt from a perspective of representing the organization that that was a better positioning for us. Optum was already incorporated in Delaware, this really was just a process of making sure we had access to that venue. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Again, for the record, Tim Smith from Walden Asset Management. I have a couple of comments. My first is actually just a process question about the meeting. I find it curious that we worked through the official vote, but we didn't have a chance to ask a question of the auditors or the chair of the comp committee or the chair of the audit committee. Not that those would necessarily have happened, I think it's good form before we vote on the auditors to be able to ask them a question or, if we had a question about comp, to be able to ask the chair of the comp committee. Just a thought for the future.
I think that's a great observation.
Yeah.
We'll take that.
Just it could be very brief, of course. I have a couple of various points I wanna raise. My first is to thank our board for your sensitivity to the whole issue of board diversity. The board here and our history is one of a commitment to diversity. Our proxy states that very clearly. As we all know, the issue of board diversity of racial and gender composition on boards is increasingly being scrutinized, and fairly recently, leading investors like Warren Buffett and Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, are publicly championing putting more women on boards.
I'm part of a group called the Thirty Percent Coalition, composed of women's organizations and investors. They are definitely pressing companies where with zero or limited board diversity to make an urgent commitment to move forward. I chair the investor committee of that group with Anne Sheehan from CalSTRS, a very large institutional investor. Of course, as you are well aware, the strong business case drives the importance of how a diverse board adds to the quality of decision-making in the boardroom.
The appeals to companies are growing, but pressure's also expanding. This spring, the state of Massachusetts, where we're meeting today, its pension fund was $61 billion, adopted the standard whereby they would vote against any board that didn't have 25% diversity. That sends a strong message. Again, I wanna thank our board for being a strong leader on diversity. I think that's important, and I would ask that continue as a process.
Thank you.
A second question, dealing with the election of directors. As our board's very well aware, there's considerable discussion among institutional investors on the issue of board refreshment, ensuring that any company's board has fresh leadership attuned to the issues that companies face today. A decade ago, who would have even thought that the issue of cybersecurity would face companies so squarely? Now it's a high priority for many boards. I know some investors are actually discussing term limits for directors. Our company is not my investment firm is not a fan of such a rigid model. Sometimes a director with 20 years plus of experience is a treasure and an invaluable leader for the company and should not be required to retire simply because they was been there for 12 years or so.
We have three such veteran board members on our board, and we're fortunate to have them. We and other investors do appreciate it when a board carefully reviews its present skill set, its future needs, does an annual review, which you do, and calculates the average tenure of its board, and I believe our tenure is something like 13-14 years for our directors, and that a board seeks to bring new skills and new ideas. Mr. Burke's been a historical figure for our company and for company boards in general with his over 35 years of service. This is a rare business leader who deserves our warm thanks.
I know he and our board are thinking both about the legacy of his work as chair and how a new generation on the board and in the chair role will work going forward. I'd like to ask the Chair of our Nominating Committee if you could say a few words about how our company is addressing board refreshment, building a pipeline of future directors who will continue the history of excellent service. If we could hear a few thoughts on that, I'd appreciate it.
Thank you very much. I'm Michele J. Hooper, I do chair the Nom and Gov Committee for UnitedHealth. The way in which we deal with our nominating process, I think, quite frankly, is one of the leading processes that I see. I do teach governance and have a lot of experience with what other organizations do. We spend a lot of time looking at what the skills are that we need on the board, not looking in the past at where the company has been, but looking in the future as to what the needs are going to be for the corporation.
We look not only at skills and experiences, but sort of those foundational attributes that we want all of our directors to bring to the board in order to have a well-functioning, collaborative, yet challenging set of people around the table. We spend a lot of time looking at what the trends are in the marketplace so that we understand as you talk about cybersecurity. We look at those and try to anticipate, how do we get those skills into our boardroom? Some you want to put on the board, some you may want to bring into the boardroom as advisors or others. You don't need to have all the skills around your table because quite frankly, you only have a limited number of positions. We spend an awful lot of time trying to figure out what those attributes are.
We do have a nominating advisory committee, as you may know, that is made up of investors and a clinician that help to assess and to review the process that we use for determining our next generation, if you will, of directors. They provide, quite frankly, wonderful input and valuable input to us in helping us to make sure that we are indeed not only capturing what we think our future needs will be, but what the views of our investors are in terms of what those skill sets might be that would be helpful. When we do look to bring on a new candidate, we try to make a focus and a priority as to what gaps we now have on our board versus the skills that everyone else has and look to fill those gaps.
We have a pretty robust and very focused attention on that. We do build a pipeline because as you can imagine, finding candidates for our particular company is there's a lot of them out there. A lot of people would like to be a candidate for UnitedHealth Group board. Trying to make sure that we have the appropriate people with the right experience, with the right talent, with the right ability in terms of decision-making and challenging is not an easy process. We do build a pipeline. We do have a pipeline. We do seek input from our nominating advisory committee on others that we think they think might be appropriate. We do have a process that's located on our website, I think it's our website, that seeks, or has a process by which any shareholder investor can provide input to us.
Right.
Our Nominating Committee goes through a very rigorous process, both in using inside opinions and processes and perspectives, as well as seeking outside perspectives.
From your experience, is that Nominating Advisory Committee, that's a very rare thing in the business?
I have not.
It's another example of leadership.
Yeah. I've not found another organization. As I talked about our process, I've not found another one that really has a similar type of solicitation process that we do have.
Wow. Very good model. If you could just keep the floor for a second, I have a question about a corporate governance issue that's very much in the front pages of this proxy season, and that is the issue of access to the proxy or the ability of investors with 3% of a company's shares to nominate a director and have their name in the proxy. This issue has taken off very quickly. It's getting 50%+ votes very regularly now, led very much by the Comptroller of the City of New York, CalPERS, CalSTRS, and so on. I just wondered if you could share any thinking about what is our board's review process of this. It's sort of the top governance issue of the day, whether it should or shouldn't be. I just wondered how you were doing that.
Of course, we are aware of that. We have spent quite a bit of time understanding and talking about the process. We have a very robust process, as you probably know, through Dannette Smith and others within the organization that actually goes out and spends time with our shareholders, particularly our large shareholders, so that we understand what their issues are, what their thinking is about the organization, our board, as well as our company and our strategy. We try to have in place a process where we've already been for years, actively and proactively trying to understand what the issues are, what the concerns are, so that we can find ways of addressing them and having a dialogue.
Right.
I think part of the issue that has given rise to proxy access is a feeling that there has not been as much communication between companies, boards, and investors around issues that are weighing on the minds of the investor community. While a lot of information and challenges have flowed through, we think that the process that we've been going through our solicitation of shareholders, has given us a good insight and good window into that. We're going to keep, you know, aware and keep tracking that because I don't think it's an issue that is going to go away anytime soon. We will keep quite frankly, quite mindful of it and continue to address it as it comes along.
You're probably right that the root cause issue you're already addressing and have been for a while. I think you're also right, this isn't gonna go away, and someday somebody will be knocking on your door like they are with hundreds of other companies asking.
Yeah. Well, hopefully we have a good process in place and skills and tools that we can explain in terms of how we are managing the UnitedHealth Group approach.
Thank you very much. One final question to you, Mr. Chairman.
Sure.
This is with regard to the issue of lobbying. We've had a shareholder resolution in, I guess, it was last year on lobbying. As I did a quick calculation, if I did it correctly, in the last three or so years, you've spent over $16 million on lobbying. The request that investors are putting to companies, it's a general request. We think it's just good governance. Others disagree. Is that companies be transparent and open about their expenditures, their oversight, like how they oversee their lobbying process
How they wanna make sure their mission is incorporated in their lobbying and what they lobby on. We're seeking information on how companies spend money directly and indirectly through third parties. I guess my question is whether the board since last year has done any, or you, sir, in the top management, has done any other, thinking about this issue, and are you, considering, giving more information to shareholders?
You may be aware that we have a policy committee to the board, and that policy committee takes up several areas in terms of healthcare policies and so forth, but also our social giving, our political activities, and our advocacy actions, et cetera. That committee of the board is engaged in terms of appropriate oversight and engagement in terms of our activities. We do provide information with respect to those activities and spending on our website.
We have a variety of filings where everything that is required to be filed with respect to those activities and funds that are dedicated to that are presented. Given the materiality of it, we think that's an appropriate response. You know, we do continue to look at this year to year to make sure that we are responding to the concerns about the activities of our organization and its interests. I think we do actually a very good job and a very responsive job in that area.
Just a comment, a friendly disagreement. I think you do do what's required. You disclose your quarterly links to the Senate report. I don't know if you've ever tried to go into your Senate report, not yours, anyone. It is a ponderous job to try to figure out what it says. It would be a lot easier to give that link, but simply say, "Let me summarize what we lobbied on last year and how much money we spent and why."
It'd be a couple of sentences, but it would make it easier. Likewise, lobbying is often done through third parties, trade associations or not-for-profit sometimes, and that information is very obscure. It doesn't see the light of day. Therefore, I think, transparency going forward, that's one that's well worthwhile for that committee to have a look at that issue a little further and provide some models of what other companies are doing.
We will take that, that input. If we can make it easier, we will see if we can address that. As you know, this matter's been brought forward from in proposals in the past and has not gotten the support, and that support is diminishing. We will continue to look at this and certainly try to make it easier for those who have an interest.
Thanks for your openness.
Thank you. Yes.
Hi. I'm Will Danoff. I work for Fidelity Investments, which is a very large shareholder of the company. We own, I think, more than 50 million shares, and my funds own, perhaps 20 million of those shares, Stephen. I just wanna thank you very much for your hard work and all your leadership this year. I can't imagine what it's like overseeing an organization of 180,000 employees. Culture starts from the top, and you've done an outstanding job for us, so I wanna thank you.
Also wanna thank the board for its support of Stephen and the rest of the management team. I'm curious, Stephen, we read headlines about expensive biotech drugs, and you referenced innovation and the company's embracing of innovation. How UnitedHealthcare and Optum engages with the biotech industry and, you know, decides what is the right price for, you know, a cure of a disease or an oncology drug that would extend life for 12 or 18 months? Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks for the comments, thank you for the question. Well, we engage in a number of ways. We are certainly very attentive to it on the UnitedHealthcare side in terms of really being attentive to the pipelines and the efficacy of the, you know, paying attention to the trials and so forth, when these drugs could come to market and our view of comparative effectiveness. I think you can imagine we have an independent group that looks at how these should be positioned in our benefits and so forth. Optum has a business that actually works with the life sciences community and is engaged very much in terms of comparative effectiveness, economic analysis, so very attentive to that community.
We're actually quite encouraged by the science that's coming forward and the impact that these kinds of this kind of research could do on the impact on people, disease, et cetera. In terms of the complexity of the transition as a new way the science moves in and overtakes traditional practice. The pricing on those efforts is a concern because it's not always clear what the impact will be. It is difficult to really get a sense for how prices have been reached, and the spectrum of pricing when you take a look at some of these as they're priced across the globe in different markets, et cetera, under different systems.
We are very sensitive to that. Want to make these kinds of therapies available, but available in a way that they can be sustained by the system and covered in the benefit structures in this country and in others. Oftentimes that is a calibration of the timing of how well these therapies can be absorbed into benefits and into society, and how well they are feathered in. I would offer that where we are trying to work with benefit sponsors, governments, large corporations, about how to best embrace these kinds of things to make sure that the good research continues to get rewarded.
The products that actually aren't differentiating are not rewarded, and how we do get the really good things to the marketplace as quickly as possible for people. We really do spend on both sides, a fair amount of activity on this. As I say, for Optum, there's a pretty meaningful engagement with the life sciences community.
Thank you. I appreciate that, Steve.
I guess just one follow-up. You know, we hear about the U.S. spending, I think 18% or 19% of GDP on healthcare, and perhaps not generating the outcomes that, you know, everyone would like in society. I'm curious if there were one or two big opportunities that you see that UnitedHealthcare can help, you know, improve outcomes while, you know, lowering overall costs of society and healthcare?
Sure. well, I mentioned a couple in my prepared remarks, you really come at it from both ends of the spectrum. Engaging consumers, particularly those that are challenged, to really helping them understand and use the system more effectively. those who are in good health to remain in good health and make better choices around their matters related to their health and their use of health resources in a more responsible way has a dramatic impact, and we have seen that as we've aligned benefits that align incentives appropriately that way.
On the care delivery community, to really focus on those who really practice consistently, strong evidence-based care, and consistently they'd get better outcomes. Then if we can propagate those outcomes, either through how we engage with them, whether we can help them modernize their systems, payment incentives, et cetera. Modernizing and connecting all of this information so that the whole marketplace is more informed and operates.
What we see is that when people are given that kind of information and engaged in a kind of way, as I pointed out in the comments, the costs can dramatically decline. That opens up resources for others to be used or if very expensive therapy is introduced in the marketplace, there might be the capacity to absorb them. I think we're actually engaged. I'd say our approach to healthcare is innovative. Distinctive, we see others following that pattern. I'm pretty hopeful about what the future can be.
Excellent. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Any other questions? I thank you very much for your attention this morning, and we hope to see you again next year. Thank you all.