According toUnitedHealth's CEO, the costs of Medicare for All would “surelyhave a severe impact on the economy and jobs — all withoutfundamentally increasing access to care.” (Photo:Shutterstock)

The U.S.'s biggest health insurer sharply criticized the“Medicare for All” proposals being debated by Democrats, sayingthey would destabilize the nation's health-care system and disruptthe economy.

UnitedHealth Group Inc., which provides health insurance toalmost 50 million people, said the proposal by some liberalDemocrats would amount to a “wholesale disruption of Americanhealth care.” Contenders for the Democratic presidentialnomination, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, havecalled for government-run health care as a way of covering morepeople, calling it a “human right, not a privilege.”

Related: Sanders's Medicare for All: Too radical forAmericans?

“The options are clear between a government-sponsored orgovernment-run system and the one we have to offer,” UnitedHealthChief Executive Officer Dave Wichmann said on a conference callTuesday, after the health insurance giant reported first-quarterearnings that topped analysts' estimated. Wichmann said the costsof Medicare for All would “surely have a severe impact on theeconomy and jobs — all without fundamentally increasing access tocare.”

Health insurance stocks have been rattled in the first fewmonths of 2019 as Democratic presidential contenders have emergedto back variations of Medicare for All, and a resurgent liberalwing of the party in the House has brought the issue to the fore inCongress.

While there are many variations of the Medicare for All idea, ingeneral it involves expanding the program that covers olderAmericans to the rest of the population. Some proposals would haveMedicare as an option for people to buy into and compete withprivate insurers, while others would replace the entire privatehealth-insurance system with Medicare.

“The path forward is to achieve universal coverage and it can besubstantially reached through existing public and privateplatforms,” Wichmann said on the call, saying there should be ahealth system that “offers the access, choice and coverageprotections people seek at a fair cost to the individual andsociety as a whole.”

UnitedHealth shares were up 2.4 percent to $235.63 at 9:32 a.m.in New York. The company said it 880,000 new customers in the firstquarter, compared with a year prior.

Read more: 

• White House report slams Medicare for All, talks upTrump administration reforms
• 4 approaches to expanding health care (and only oneis Medicare for All)
• Trump says GOP 'blew it' on health care and mustrun on new plan

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