Harvard Pilgrim

A few months ago I noted that while UnitedHealthcare and some other carriers may be losing money hand over fist on the ACA exchanges, at least some of them are making a profit, breaking even or at least cutting their losses down to a reasonable level.

In the past few days, this has become increasingly clear, as Centene's news from yesterday shows.

As Kevin Drum at Mother Jones notes (quoting Richard Mayhew of Balloon Juice):

As a simple reminder, competitive markets should see some companies make money and some companies that offer more expensive and less attractive products lose money. I would be extremely worried if everyone was making money after three years, just like I would be extremely worried that everyone was losing money after three years of increasingly better data.

Advertisement