Humana ($HUM) podcast mentions
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 · 2026-08-21I mean, Medicare Advantage is no bargain. Okay. You get it and you feel it's Medicare disadvantage. It's really rather incredible. You know what people— you know, people who are on a plan from a company, when you switch to Medicare, it's not a windfall. It's the opposite. So you have to get Medicare Advantage. So Humana is up $5 today. My Medicare Advantage is with them. They have good program. But do you really want to go up against Costco if they decide to have Medicare Advantage?
Jim Cramer · Squawk on the Street · Global Bond Sell-Off Weighs on Stocks, Home Depot Beats, Meta Heads to Trial 8/18/26 · 2026-08-18Yeah, exactly. And it's, it's a similar story playing out. I mean, obviously completely different market, but it's a similar story playing out with Medicare Advantage. They're really all focused on margin recovery right now, and it, it is a multi-year rebuild everywhere across across the biggest companies. We had Humana come out today saying that their individual Medicare Advantage pre-tax margin should double this year, excluding stars headwinds, which is a bit of a wild card right now across the entire industry, given the mess that that is between the insurers and the government. But it's the same, same story arc with, with UnitedHealth, with Elevance, all trying to rebuild margins in that business, mostly going into next year. And we're seeing a lot of targeted exits. So that's either leaving markets entirely or it's dropping, you know, like PPO ends and hoping to shuttle members into HMO or, or narrower networks. So basically overall, Elevance, United, um, Elevance did it last year. United is dropping millions of members this year. Humana just announced today they're going to drop 600,000 members through targeted exits. So similar story. They're trying to basically shed more expensive membership to preserve the margin overall, which really contrasts with the decade before this, which was growth, I think, at all costs. Scott, so that's the story, is margin recovery continues for Medicare Advantage.
Jacob Emerson · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast · Jakob Emerson on ACA Subsidies, Medicare Advantage and What Q2 Earnings Reveal · 2026-07-29speaking of healthcare guys, there's Boeing, but giving up the ghost instantly. Back to healthcare. It was a while. We talked So a lot about Humana and about a lot of the managed care companies as well.
David Faber · Squawk on the Street · 9am Hour: Fed Decision Day: SK Hynix Effect on Chips, Dow Tumbles, Oil Surges 7/29/26 · 2026-07-29Humana stock is down, but it's had quite a move. They did report earnings.
David Faber · Squawk on the Street · 9am Hour: Fed Decision Day: SK Hynix Effect on Chips, Dow Tumbles, Oil Surges 7/29/26 · 2026-07-29no, that has been a great move there. As for Humana, I mean, the bulls will tell you they can do as much as $40 a share in earnings in 2028. We'll see. But, you know, there is the possibility of getting back to 3 to 4% 20% margins on Medicare Advantage. The breakeven is something.
David Faber · Squawk on the Street · 9am Hour: Fed Decision Day: SK Hynix Effect on Chips, Dow Tumbles, Oil Surges 7/29/26 · 2026-07-29Well, you know what? Watch the research. There it is again and again. UnitedHealth upgraded by numbers. CVS, you take Merck numbers up. Small and medium-sized industrials go higher. The transports go higher. This is the so-called broadening. People long for the idea that we're just going to have semis up. No, this is a broadening market. But it's areas that people don't necessarily want. They don't want to go in there and buy Humana, but Humana is the winner.
Jim Cramer · Squawk on the Street · 9AM Hour: SK Hynix Shares' Record Decline, Altman-Musk Showdown, Oil Jumps 7/13/26 · 2026-07-13Talk a lot about tech, but the real bull market here has been for the last month the UNH managed care insurance business. And today, CVS price target raised by RBC. Don't forget, we got Walgreens basically disappearing. We had Rite Aid disappearing. We have CBS redoing the front of the store and CVS doing a terrific job with Aetna. It doesn't matter. CBS and then UNH, then Humana. It's just monstrous, the price increases. So, I mean, yes, the price increases in DRAM and price increases in health insurance.
Jim Cramer · Squawk on the Street · 9AM Hour: Stocks Shrug Off U.S-Iran Tensions, Chips Surge, PepsiCo CEO "First On CNBC" 7/9/26 · 2026-07-09They have time. They make you wait in line. And then they also have an institute called NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. And there they just crunch numbers, cost-benefit, and they say, as a national health system, we're gonna cover this thing and not this thing. The US has a privatized system, as you mentioned, much more privatized. What that means is that while there's some regulation in the US, the onus is really on insurers— UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Humana, Blue Cross. The onus is on the insurers to form that basket of rationing policies. What that means is that instead of having some kind of centralized national way you're rationing healthcare, your insurance company is saying, okay, we have to ration healthcare. In some way, if we don't ration healthcare, our premiums are gonna be sky-high, nobody's gonna choose our plans, and we're gonna go out of business.
Ben Handel · Freakonomics Radio · The World Is (Still) Drowning in Sludge · 2026-06-24As we've discussed in our podcast many times, the part of health care that is viewed as the best safety play has traditionally been health insurance. But as we all know, the health insurance sector is experiencing wrenching problems in every one of its businesses, from rising health care costs to a lack of price increases in Medicare. As a result, health care was down 5% during the quarter, with UNH, Centene and Humana down 18%, 20% and 32% respectively. By the way, health insurance finally got a piece of good news this week. In February, the government announced that it was increasing Medicare Advantage pricing by only 0 0.09% in 2027. Basically 0. That was a preliminary estimate and health insurance stocks declined precipitously. On that news Monday night, the government issued final pricing data and increased pricing by 2.5% versus the original 0.09%. Now, 2.5% is not great.
Steve Eisman · The Real Eisman Playbook · Q1 Market Recap_ How Private Credit, AI, & War Have Dominated 2026 So Far | The Weekly Wrap · 2026-04-10