Americans don’t need another reason to check their 401(k)s. But Mark Cuban has one—and it has less to do with whether the portfolio is making money than with what those investments are actually funding.
Billionaire entrepreneur and Cost Plus Drugs co-founder Mark Cuban wrote in a post on X that Americans who own shares in funds holding major health insurance companies are part of the problem driving up healthcare costs. Cuban pointed to a statistic that makes his argument especially personal—61% of Americans own stocks either directly or indirectly.
More News from Barchart
Cuban’s Message to 401(k) Investors
“If you own shares in a fund that owns any of the biggest insurance carriers, you are part of the cost of healthcare problem in this country,” Cuban wrote.
Read more: Meeting AI’s 8,000% energy demand growth. Invest in Frontieras before the August 27 deadline.
He argued that those companies have an incentive to protect their stock prices, even when doing so can come at the expense of patients.
“Those companies put the share price over the health of you, your family, co-workers and friends,” Cuban wrote. He also accused them of misleading people in pursuit of higher profits.
His proposed response isn’t particularly complicated. Cuban urged investors to tell the funds they own that they’ll sell if those funds don’t divest from the biggest insurance companies.
“You can make a difference,” Cuban wrote.
The 61% Problem
Cuban’s argument gets more interesting because individual investors don’t necessarily have to buy an insurance stock themselves to have exposure to the industry.
A worker with a 401(k), for example, may own a broad-market index fund without ever selecting a health insurer. That fund can still hold shares of major companies in the industry.
Read more: You can now build wealth like a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don’t have to chase down rent or take 3 A.M tenant calls
Among the major players are UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Elevance Health (ELV), CVS Health (CVS), Cigna (CI), Humana (HUM), and Centene (CNC). These companies can appear in mutual funds and ETFs that are widely held by investors.
That makes Cuban’s 61% figure central to his argument. If most Americans have some form of stock ownership, even indirectly, he believes shareholders have more influence than they may realize.
