$CNC Centene Tape Reports
Per Ticker.id: $CNC Centene Tape Reports — 7 podcast mentions across 1 podcast (30 days), latest 2026-08-21 10:00 UTC.
So I think just overall, as we go into '27 and this fall, the enrollment period, Scott, I'll preface by saying, you know, plans, they legally cannot talk about the benefits they're going to be offering until for a little bit more than a month from now. They've, they're still getting everything buttoned up with CMS, the approvals underway and all that good stuff. So it's been pretty, um, mum from, from the insurers directly in terms of what states they're going to be in, where they're going to be exiting, things like that. A lot of the news, um, or confirmations of, of exits, of pullbacks on benefits, a lot of it right now is coming, um, from broker materials that are getting leaked to, to different out, uh, to different outlets. Um, Humana has really been the only forthcoming one on earnings calls saying that They're going to be pulling out of markets and dropping products that currently cover about 600,000 of their members. And so, you know, they're hoping to recapture, I think they said about 40% of those members. But, you know, that's, it's another straight year of pullbacks. And I think overall, um, you know, if we're looking at the entire industry, it's, it's margin over growth. Years past, Medicare Advantage has been all about growth, getting as many members as possible. Uh, now it's about preserving those margins. And, and Humana said itself that they're trying to get back to 3% by 2028, a profit margin. Margin. So obviously very slim margins, just trying to get back to 3%. And so yeah, the financial crunch, very real. The insurance industry, you know, did not get the rate increase from CMS that it wanted this year. So still operating under pretty tight financial constraints according to the insurers. And then in terms of what we're hearing other outlets within the industry reports is that UnitedHealthcare is also eyeing more market exits this year. Aetna is cutting broker commissions, trying to, you know, pare back back some of the enrollment into its plans. And then just another outlet this morning was reporting that Centene is going to do another year of market exits. They exited 6 states last year from Medicare Advantage, pulling back apparently to another 3 for next year. So, you know, we'll see what happens.
Jacob Emerson — Becker’s Healthcare Podcast · Jakob Emerson on Medicare Advantage Pullbacks and SCAN’s Costco Partnership · 2026-08-21Sure. Good to talk with you, Scott. So I thought one story that caught my eye, or a small story that adds to a bigger trend at UnitedHealth, is a purchase that they made of a health benefits platform. So HSAs, FSAs, stuff like that. They bought a new platform company that goes under that part of their business. And the executives last year kind of hinted at that this is a growing area for them to expand margins, the financial side of their business. And so I'll dive into that and I think kind of what it means and how the company is using basically the bank that they own to continue to grow profits and what this new purchase means within that. And then another story that I thought we could talk about is insurers talking about how they're investing and implementing in AI, which is a lot, but we heard something new, a contrasting take during these last second quarter earnings calls for the first time from one insurer, Centene, their CEO getting on the call and talking a little bit about how she doesn't want to just get on earnings calls and talk about how they're investing in AI. Just to essentially please investors, but they want to bring how those investments are actually translated into increased ROI for the company. And I thought that was a really interesting, candid take, and really the first I've personally heard from some of the big insurers around how they're using this tech.
Jacob Emerson — Becker’s Healthcare Podcast · Jakob Emerson on Payer Trends, AI ROI and UnitedHealth's Expanding Financial Business · 2026-08-14Yeah, and so, I mean, just to preface, I'd say like we've been covering all the, the talk of the size and speed of AI investments from, I mean, pretty much every company that, that Becker's covers and talks to, health systems included. Um, and certainly from the payers. United has, um, talked to us about how they're investing $1.5 billion this year, $1.5 billion next year into AI. Elevance, $1 billion. CVS has been talking to us about a $20 billion decade-long technology, uh, investment commitment that includes AI. So everything on these earnings calls, Scott, for the last year or so has been AI, AI, AI. And, and it's— I think it also reflects what investors have been wanting to hear. But then this past earnings call, um, chapters for the second quarter, Centene's CEO— and Centene is the, the largest Medicaid managed care insurer in the country— um, gets on their earnings call and she says, you know, uh, that it's easy to get on one of these calls and say we're doing AI everywhere, we've got all these great partnerships. But her view is that there's also a risk of spending a lot of money on AI and getting no return for it. And that's not something that they can do as a Medicaid-first company, especially in the margin-compressed environment that insurers are operating in. And I think that's interesting because, again, I have not heard a health insurer be that explicit about it in terms of not just kind of honestly sounding a bit like a press release when it comes to talking about AI, but also that over these last few months, we've started to see companies outside of healthcare definitely talking about blowing through their AI budgets and not being able to connect those budgets to, to, um, an increase in revenue or to measurable improvements in, in their products. And, and that's not to say that Centene didn't do that, because Sarah London, the CEO, she did talk about how they, they are producing tangible results with AI, um, through financial forecasting, fraud and abuse detection algorithms for, for their claims data. Their legal department is saving money, um, because of, um, they're able to go through, uh, counsel invoices faster, they're able to do clinical documentation reviews quicker. And I think anybody who's used these tools knows that that makes sense.
Jacob Emerson — Becker’s Healthcare Podcast · Jakob Emerson on Payer Trends, AI ROI and UnitedHealth's Expanding Financial Business · 2026-08-14