The email (pdf), headlined “Write Your Senators!,” provides links to the company’s online letter-writing template and offers form letters employees can customize for writing to legislators and to local papers. The communique states that “all activity is voluntary and you may express any position you may have,” but as Judy Dugan of Consumer Watchdog suggests, employees “wouldn’t dare to speak against the company position unless they’ve already got a new job lined up.”

In August, UnitedHealth — one of the country’s largest health insurance providers – sent a letter to employees urging them to write to their representatives about about health care reform and to attend town hall meetings on the topic. One caller to a UnitedHealth health reform hotline was reportedly encouraged to attend a tea party and directed to a listing of events hosted by the rightwing America’s Independent Party.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

DULUTH: Sewage spews onto streets, into streams and Lake Superior. That happens sometimes when it rains; the feds have given the city a decade to fix it. [Duluth News Tribune]

ROSEVILLE: Republicans eye guv candidates at party picnic. An activist noted what they had in common: “They’re all conservative, and they’re all staying on message.” She forgot the obvious: They were all wet. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

DULUTH: Hillary Clinton’s autograph enough to start work on controversial pipeline. Enbridge Energy will pump 19 million gallons of Canadian oil per day across Minnesota to Superior, Wis. [Bemidji Pioneer]

MINNETONKA: H1N1 flu shots are on the house. UnitedHealth Group says it will cover the cost of vaccines for people the government says should get them. [Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal]

MINNEAPOLIS: Gophers try out new football stadium. University of Minnesota students will get in free Saturday – sans breathalizer tests, one hopes — to watch an intra-squad scrimmage.  [Minnesota Daily]

TWO HARBORS: Mayor promises memorial to beloved tree. What’s left of the landmark “Honking Tree” after scoundrels cut it down last spring will provide material for its own monument. [Duluth News Tribune]

Last week, UnitedHealth sent a letter to employees urging them to call the company’s United for Health Reform Advocacy Hotline, where specialists could help workers “personalize your message” about health care reform and connect them to congressional offices. TPM reports that an individual insured by UnitedHealth Group called the line and was encouraged to attend a tea party and directed to a listing of events hosted by the rightwing America’s Independent Party.

Update: In an email, UnitedHealth’s John Parker insisted that the company doesn’t share third-party event listings, but only information about town halls sponsored by members of Congress. “We have never encouraged our employees to participate in ‘tea parties,’” he added. “We only provide information, that is publicly available.”

The company is involved in the health care debate in another way. A company it owns, the Lewin Group, is often cited for research on health insurance costs and coverage, but rarely is UnitedHealth’s ownership (via their subsidiary Ingenix) mentioned in the media. In the past 24 hours, seven news stories or op-eds at Google News cited the Lewin Group’s statistics on health care reform; of those, only three — including our sister site, the Colorado Independent — mentioned that the consulting group is owned by UnitedHealth.

The group is said to operate independently from the parent company. Last month, the Washington Post reported that the Lewin Group was “accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied UnitedHealth and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the ‘reasonable and customary’ doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care.”

UnitedHealth ended up settling, paying $50 million to the New York attorney general and $350 million to the AMA.

In other words, he was just a medical doctor playing a major CEO. How’s he supposed to know anything about money and finance? He only spent 14 years as CEO of one of the largest health care insurers in the United States. Don’t even begin talking to him about stocks and all that numbers gobblygook!

Last week, Forbes reported that UnitedHealth spent more than $1.1 million lobbying the federal government on legislation issues in the first quarter of this year alone. The Minnetonka-based company also lobbied against the Bank Holding Company Act of 2007, which would have restricted a commercial company from operating a bank. UnitedHealth is a non-financial company that owns industrial banks.

But don’t expect a UnitedHealth CEO to understand anything about money and stock options. The company owns industrial banks, but it’s just paper printed with pretty faces they move around every day.

Cross-posted at Vox Verax.

Dr. William McGuire, long-time CEO of UnitedHealth, headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, will retire under pressure by December 1, 2006, following an investigation of the backdating of the company’s stock options. According to MPR, “McGuire is one of the country’s highest paid executives, having amassed nearly $1.8 billion in unexercised stock options, according to estimates cited in the Wall Street Journal.”

Minnesota Monitor has looked into Dr. McGuire’s family political contributions. According to opensecrets.org, in the 2006 political cycle all of his and his wife’s contributions have gone exclusively to Republican candidates or the UnitedHealth Group PAC. Recipients have included Rep. Mark Kennedy, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota ($8,400); Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman ($8,000); Thomas Kean, Jr., who is running for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey ($4,000); and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky ($2,000).

More…In the 2006 cycle, the McGuires gave a total of $10,000 to the UnitedHealth Group PAC. In the same cycle the UHG PAC doled out $221,500 to federal candidates, 63% of whom were Republicans and 37% Democrats. Minnesota congressional delegation recipients included Republicans Jim Ramstad ($5,000), John Kline ($4,000), Mark Kennedy ($2,000) and Gil Gutknecht ($2,000), and Democrat Collin Peterson ($4,000).

The total UnitedHealth Group PAC expenditures in the cycle came to $615,377, which included donations to other PACS, political party campaign committees, and state and local candidates. The largest recipients of the UnitedHealth Group PAC’s largess were the National Republican Congressional Committee ($30,000), National Republican Senatorial Committee ($30,000), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ($30,000) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ($15,000).

Other PACs receiving top dollars from the UHG PAC included House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-IL) Keep Our Majority PAC ($10,000), Sen. Coleman’s NorthStar Leadership PAC ($10,000), Sen. Bill Frist’s (R-TN) Volunteer PAC ($10,000), and Rep. Nancy L. Johnson’s (R-CT)  Leadership Encouraging Excellence PAC ($10,000). All four PACs support Republican candidates.