UnitedHealth Group is a Cara 100 company that has been taking a pasting in equity markets for the five months that the U.S. Government decided to open pandora's box with their new rules on medicare pricing.

If there is one thing that traders have to recognize about government intervention, it's that you ought to put your money on entrepreneurs. They haven't found a government rule yet that they cannot get around, nor a govt programme they cannot exploit to the max.

Government cannot compete against business because business holds the unfair advantage. It's called profit motive. Some people call that greed.

Call it whatever; govt will always be behind the curve. Every time they set the bar higher, it's only a matter of time before entrepreneurs figure it out and jump still higher.

UnitedHealth is in the Cara 100 because, despite a senior management issues that are now well known, this is a solid business model and a well run company. In fact they are the best. I like Aetna too, but for pure facilities management, these people excel.

Do you think executive management ought not to take an extensive stock options package? Should he or she be required to give some back after the performance of the company under their watch be so superlative that those options become worth a billion or more?

You know, I don't. This is a different issue than the one that faced Pfizer's Hank McKinnell or the NYSE's Richard Grasso. In those cases, there was a compensation committee that in the backroom worked out a pay package that everybody around the table deemed fair.

But in the case of UNH's William McGuire, there was a carrot put out, and subsequently his hard work positioned him and the stockholders to mutually benefit. What McKinnell did was take the stock down every year. For $83 million a year in pay, I figure there happen to be 10,000 ready, willing and able replacements. Same for Grasso.

But UNH shareholders should not feel that way. Some do of course but that's a class-action lawyer's way of saying he or she adds value " by taking it from somebody. NOT.

The UNH is up today because while there is likely to be a write-down of $286 million over the issue of stock option accounting, most traders don't think it's a big deal. This is a story that is all over the media, but it's not a big deal in my view.

Cara 100 GICS 35 UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) (UNH) Financial Analysis