Author Topic: Top insurer warns that Obamacare enrollment worse than expected  (Read 602 times)

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rangerrebew

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Top insurer warns that Obamacare enrollment worse than expected
« on: January 11, 2014, 08:43:13 pm »
Top insurer warns that Obamacare enrollment mix worse than expected

By PHILIP KLEIN | JANUARY 10, 2014 AT 11:15 AM




Humana Inc., the nation's fourth-largest health insurer by market share, warned Thursday that the risk pool of applicants for insurance through President Obama's health care law would be worse than previously expected.

Ever since the botched rollout of the health care law's exchanges in October, the policy community has been eager to know more about the mix of individuals signing up for insurance through the law.

Because the law forces insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions, insurers need to attract a critical mass of young and healthy individuals with lower medical costs into the exchanges to offset the cost. But the Obama administration has yet to release demographic data on those who have picked a plan through the exchanges.
 

 
But in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Humana disclosed to investors, "as a result of the December 2013 federal and state regulatory changes allowing certain individuals to remain in their previously existing off-exchange health plans, the Company now expects the risk mix of members enrolling through the health insurance exchanges to be more adverse than previously expected."

The regulatory change Humana is referring to is the "administrative fix" announced by the Obama administration aimed at allowing individuals to remain enrolled in their current plans, which had been cancelled as a result of requirements imposed by the law. Obama announced the "fix" after a storm of criticism over his broken promise that anybody who liked their plan could keep it. Insurers had been depending on those with cancelled plans (who tend to be healthier) to end up obtaining insurance through exchanges.

Humana said that the company was "evaluating" the financial effects of the changes, but at this time, did not adjust their earnings forecast for 2014.

In the same filing, Humana said cuts to Medicare Advantage payments to private insurers made by the health care law would be steeper than expected, triggering changes to benefits.

"The Company expects to continue its standard process of seeking alternatives to minimize the disruption to Medicare beneficiaries this level of rate decline may cause," the filing read. "Such alternatives include clinical management programs, operating cost efficiencies, benefit changes, market exits and other operating strategies. In the interim, the Company also expects to continue its efforts to educate CMS, the Administration and Congress on the adverse impact such rate pressures have upon Medicare beneficiaries."

http://washingtonexaminer.com/top-insurer-warns-that-obamacare-enrollment-mix-worse-than-expected/article/2541948#null
« Last Edit: January 11, 2014, 08:45:31 pm by rangerrebew »

Offline Gazoo

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Re: Top insurer warns that Obamacare enrollment worse than expected
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2014, 08:54:31 pm »
"The Tea Party has a right to feel cheated.

When does the Republican Party, put in the majority by the Tea Party, plan to honor its commitment to halt the growth of the Federal monolith and bring the budget back into balance"?

Offline musiclady

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Character still matters.  It always matters.

I wear a mask as an exercise in liberty and love for others.  To see it as an infringement of liberty is to entirely miss the point.  Be kind.

"Sometimes I think the Church would be better off if we would call a moratorium on activity for about six weeks and just wait on God to see what He is waiting to do for us. That's what they did before Pentecost."   - A. W. Tozer

Use the time God is giving us to seek His will and feel His presence.

Offline Lipstick on a Hillary

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Re: Top insurer warns that Obamacare enrollment worse than expected
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2014, 01:22:10 am »
ROFL!  Good one Gazoo.   :laugh:

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Top insurer warns that Obamacare enrollment worse than expected
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2014, 02:36:48 am »
The "filing with the SEC" is an 8-K report. This deals with reporting material events and information in between quarterly reports.

"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln