Centene May Sell Individual Major Medical in More States
Executives say they are very optimistic about the open enrollment period for 2019.
A health insurer best known for its Medicaid plans is still happy with the Affordable Care Act public exchange system, and it may sell exchange plans in more states in 2019.
Executives from the insurer, Centene Corp., dropped a few hints about the company’s 2019 exchange strategy Tuesday, during a conference call with securities analysts.
Kevin Counihan, a senior vice president at Centene, said he Centene is bullish about its own exchange plans, and bullish about the public exchange plan system.
“We’re expecting ongoing growth in our business,” Counihan said. “We think it remains very, very stable, and we’re very enthusiastic about the open enrollment coming up…. We have expansion plans going into next year, both in adding new states as well as expanding an existing states.”
(Related: Centene Completes Acquisition of New York State Plan)
Counihan has close personal relationships with the public exchange system managers: He used to run the state-based ACA exchange in Connecticut, and he later ran the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, the arm of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that runs ACA programs.
Centene held the analyst call to go over its second-quarter earnings.
- The St. Louis-based insurer is reporting $299 million in net income for the quarter on $14 billion in revenue, up from $252 million in net income on $12 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2017.
- The company ended the quarter providing or administering health coverage for 12.8 million people, up from 12.2 million people a year earlier.
- The number of people with Centene exchange plan coverage increased to 1.5 million, from 1.1 million people a year earlier.
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