Top insurer UnitedHealth Group said Tuesday its 2017 earnings will benefit as it mostly exits the ObamaCare exchanges, its worst-performing business line.
UnitedHealth reported second-quarter earnings of $1.96 per share, up 13% from a year earlier, handily beating analysts’ estimates of $1.89. Still, the company just slightly raised its full-year earnings outlook to $7.80-$7.95 a share from $7.75-$7.95, roughly in line with consensus estimates for $7.89.
The high end of its full-year 2016 earnings guidance held steady because worse-than-expected results in its ObamaCare individual market business called for a conservative outlook, management said in an earnings call.
. . .
The Republican leading the House caucus’ campaign arm said the party’s presumptive nominee will work with the caucus to replace the Affordable Care Act if elected in November.
“House Republicans have put forward patient-centered health care that will be affordable for families,” Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said Monday in a speech at the Republican National Convention. “We’re offering a real alternative, and showing voters that Republicans are the party of new and good ideas, while Democrats are clearly the party of the failed status quo, especially on health care.”
. . .
California’s Obamacare customers can expect a hefty increase in their monthly health insurance premiums next year.
Covered California, the state’s Obamacare marketplace, released proposed premiums Tuesday morning, and the statewide average increase for 2017 will be 13.2 percent.
Peter Lee, the agency’s executive director, cited factors including increased medical costs and the end of a federal “reinsurance” program as main drivers of the increase.
Blue Shield and Anthem Blue Cross customers will face the steepest increases.
. . .
Fifteen of the health insurance cooperatives started with federal dollars through the Affordable Care Act have failed — four of them just this month — saddling taxpayers with an estimated $1.7 billion in bad loans.
Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative is one of seven still standing.
But the next few months will determine whether Common Ground, which insures about 20,000 in 19 counties in eastern Wisconsin, manages to survive.
“I’m confident we’ll make it through this year,” said Cathy Mahaffey, its chief executive officer since 2014.
Beyond that, though, Common Ground faces an uncertain future.
The cooperative has lost $84.8 million from its inception in 2012 through the end of last year and owes the federal government $107.7 million.
. . .
The Trump health plan reportedly would make 18 million people uninsured by 2017. But by entirely repealing Obamacare and all its attendant taxes and regulations, the plan also is expected to reduce net federal savings over 10 years of $583 billion and reduce premiums in the non-group market by at least 20%. Progressives surely would be aghast at this prospect and you can be certain that unless Trump modifies the plan’s key features, Hillary Clinton will make it an important campaign issue this fall. But what should the average American think about this trade-off? It all comes down to how much Americans should be forced to pay to prevent each year of being uninsured.
To figure this out, we need to know the total amount that Americans would save if Obamacare were repealed and the net increase in uninsured person-years that would result.
. . .