ObamaCare Has Been Good for Insurance Companies
Over the last 12 months, shares of the top five publicly traded health insurance companies — Aetna, WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Cigna — have increased by an average of 32 percent, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has risen by just 24 percent. (The New York Times)
“Strong profits in the current year, as growth slowed in overall health care costs, is one probable explanation for the outperformance by the group.
Another is the growing expectation that payments from new customers required to buy insurance under the Affordable Care Act will offset costs from new regulations.”
Definitely seeming more possible
How is it that the model is straying so far from what republicans are predicting?
These are only stock market effects, combined with healthcare costs going stagnant. As time goes by the actual costs will reveal themselves.
“And most health insurers are forecasting earnings growth after the health care law is fully in effect.
David Cordani, Cigna’s chief executive, said his company’s average annual earnings per share would grow 10 to 13 percent over the next three to five years.”
That’s definitely surprising
Eye brow raising at best
“Yet from the financial perspective of the health care industry, Obamacare, as the law is often known, doesn’t seem much of a hindrance.”
It seems they are adapting
As the market intends, but the ACA is too big to adapt
Precisely
“Because they face new regulations intended to broaden coverage and limit profit-taking, some analysts have been concerned that profits will suffer. But in the run-up to the Affordable Care Act, stock market prices have told a different story.”
Preliminary results could be significantly different than actual results.
Definitely, everyone should buckle up and prepare
Or find an apocalypse bunker
“someday we may look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.”
I doubt that…
Mark T. Bertolini, the Aetna chief executive, said recently: “We continue to believe that public exchanges can represent a longer-term upside opportunity.”
Upside for who?
The insurance companies are going to adapt to make money. I have no doubt there was a significant amount of lobbying from them in developing the ACA.
What may happen is that some of the smaller players will drop out, and the bigger ones will continue to offer coverage, but rates will most assuredly increase. The premiums from my office coverage are now up almost 25% since ACA was enacted.
The fuss is not about insurance companies going under, the bigger ones won’t do that. The fuss is how much this is going to cost us on our premiums as time goes on.
I’m not sure what to think of this. The stock prices of insurers took a hit during the early negotiations over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. As time went by, investors became more comfortable with the law. More people will have coverage, so the market could get larger for insurers. However, what happens to individual insurers remains to be seen. Adverse selection and MLR could cause stock prices to trend lower in the future.
Got duped anyone? Well, the insurance companies are laughing all the way to the bank. “MAKE NO MISTAKE…”, this is definitely NOT a mistake and only a planned program for the government to make money and the insurance companies to make money. That is why, when the plan was first being debated, NO insurance company stood up in protest. WHY? Because they were complicit with the government to rip the public off with cancelled plans and increased horrific new premiums and deductions. LIVE WITH IT? NO!!! BOYCOTT the programs – YES!!! Then watch it collapse. RIPPED and DUPED again? Sorry, NOT this guy.