Healthcare Payers / Providers


January 22, 2025

[OSCR, CNC, HCA, THC, WELL] Optimistic on ACA Subsidies, But Watching Other Risks

By Beth Steindecker

While investors in insurers and providers seem most concerned about the fate of the expiring enhanced ACA subsidies, which we still expect to be revised but ultimately extended later this year, other – albeit smaller…

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January 17, 2025

MedPAC Provider Recs Likely to Be Ignored in Favor of Savings Targets Like Site Neutrality, Medicaid, Rule Repeals

By Beth Steindecker

We doubt Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s (MedPAC) FY/CY26 Medicare payment recommendations for home health agencies, inpatient rehab facilities, skilled nursing facilities, hospices, dialysis centers, hospitals, and physician offices, which were voted on Thursday in nearly…

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January 16, 2025

UNH: Though Confident, Public Policy Questions Remain

By Beth Steindecker

UnitedHealth’s (UNH) comments during its 4Q and full year 2024 earnings call about changes its it taking to head off certain public policy concerns (PBMs, prior authorization/claim denials) seem like the company is in catch-up…

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January 14, 2025

[CVS, CI, UNH]: FTC 2nd (Negative) Report on PBMs Doesn’t Change Overhang Trajectory

By Beth Steindecker

The FTC’s unanimously-supported release of its second interim report on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), focused on specialty drug dispensing at affiliated pharmacies [CVS, CI, UNH] that generated an extra $7.3B in revenue over six years,…

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January 11, 2025

[HUM, UNH, CVS, ELV, ALHC] CY26 Medicare Advantage Rates: Likely Upswing in the Final

By Beth Steindecker

CMS’s Friday release of the CY26 Advance Notice (AN) for Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers [HUM, UNH, CVS, ELV, ALHC, CLOV, CNC] came in better than our net YoY benchmark expectations with a proposed net increase…

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January 8, 2025

Conference Policy Prep Pack: Healthcare Providers & Insurers

By Beth Steindecker

With a handful of healthcare provider and insurance companies headed to San Francisco next week for a key investor conference, below we provide a set of significant policy-related questions we would like to see management teams address…

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December 18, 2024

[PBMs, Cancer Screening, Medicare Advantage] A Few Surprises in the Healthcare Spending Package but Otherwise Mirroring Prior Compromise

By Beth Steindecker

Following Tuesday night’s release of a short-term continuing resolution (CR) funding the government through March 14, we outline some key differences from previously-reported iterations of the healthcare extenders package, involving PBMs [CI, CVS, UNH, ELV],…

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December 13, 2024

[PBMs, Hospitals, Docs] Healthcare Extenders: State of Play

By Beth Steindecker

While Republicans and Democrats are trying to hash out a healthcare extenders package to add to a short-term government funding measure that needs to be taken up and passed by next Friday, we ascribe just…

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December 11, 2024

[CVS, CI, UNH] PBMs: Proposed Ban on Pharmacy Ownership, New FTC Chair Nominee, Trump’s Comments, Healthcare Extenders, Oh My!

By Beth Steindecker

Key Takeaways:  While we had expected pharmacy benefit managers [PBMs] to remain in the legislative / regulatory crosshairs during the lame duck and into the Trump administration, recent developments confirm that the anti-PBM sentiment is…

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December 9, 2024

[WBA, CVS] SCOTUS Sides with Arkansas Law; For Now, Contract Pharmacies Have Upper Hand vs. Pharma

By Beth Steindecker

This morning, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) afforded a win to state laws protecting the use of contract retail, mail-order and specialty pharmacies (WBA, CVS, WMT, UNH, CI, RAD) that arehired by 340B hospitals and clinics…

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