Mark Farrah: Health giants still profitable

The four giant health carriers that Mark Farrah Associates includes in its plan profitability charts earned less money in 2015 than they earned in 2014, but they all made money.

Analysts at the firm have analyzed the financial results of Aetna (NYSE:AET), Anthem (NYSE:ANTM), Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) in a new report on the performance of the biggest carriers.

See also: Health giants: Why analysts think they look OK

The four plans reported profit margins ranging from 3 percent to 5.1 percent in 2015, down from a range of about 3.5 percent to 5.8 percent in 2014.

The analysts calculated the profit margins by dividing the four companies’ net income by total revenue. The companies produced a total of $13.7 billion in net income on $329 billion in revenue.

In another section of the report, the analysts look at individual health and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) public exchange plan enrollment data from Cigna Corp. (NYSE:CI) and Humana (NYSE:HUM) as well as from the four carriers in the profitability analysis. 

Aetna, Anthem, Kaiser and UnitedHealth covered a total of about 2.7 million public exchange plan enrollees at the end of 2015, according to the analysis.