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November 18, 2015 at 08:20 AM
Analysts at Mark Farrah Associates say the big health insurers they track looked fine in the second quarter.
Many of the young nonprofit, member-owned Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) carriers have failed in recent weeks, amidst reports that high 2014 and early 2015 medical claims and problems with Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) risk stabilization programs had hurt their performance.
The failures raised questions about whether some traditional carriers might be facing problems as a result of PPACA commercial health insurance market changes.
But the Mark Farrah analysts say all of the four big carriers the firm screens for profits did well in the second quarter, and three increased their profit margins.
At Kaiser, the profit margin fell to 6.6 percent in the second quarter of 2015, from 7.5 percent in the year-earlier quarter, but margins increased to 5.1 percent, from 4.6 percent, at Aetna Inc. (NYSE:AET); to 6 percent, from 5.4 percent, at UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH); and to 4.4 percent, from 3.9 percent, at Anthem Inc. (NYSE:ANTM), according to a Mark Farrah report.
