Health insurer Centene is looking forward to the next Obamacare open enrollment and plans to continue investing in the market, company executives said Tuesday.
“We remain very bullish about the exchanges and the stability of the market,” Jeff Schwaneke, Centene’s chief financial officer, said Tuesday during the company’s second-quarter earnings call. “We think it remains very stable and we’re very enthusiastic about the open enrollment coming up.”
Centene posted 19 percent in revenue growth compared to last year during the second quarter, according to earnings results.
The health insurer has 1.5 million Obamacare enrollees in 16 states, up from 1.08 million last year. Executives said that because the company will be applying to sell coverage in more states and expanding in existing states for 2019, then they expected more enrollment growth ahead.
They did not disclose which states they would be entering, but various states will be publicly reporting rate filings during the coming months.
“The health insurance marketplace continued to perform well in the second quarter,” CEO Michael Neidorff said in the earnings call.
Other insurers have been filing to enter the Obamacare exchanges, where customers who don’t get health insurance through a job or government program can receive government-subsidized coverage. As a result, Centene will see more competition in 2019.
“I have always thought it was a positive thing to have competition,” Neidorff said. “You end up with more noise in the market and more awareness of it. I welcome the competition … We can deal with competition effectively and continue to grow.”
Kevin Counihan, a Centene senior vice president who was the CEO of the Obamacare exchange under former President Barack Obama, said that insurer entrance into the market was a sign of its “ongoing growth and stability.”
The company also has been expanding to partner with states in the Medicaid program, which is government-funded and covers low-income people, and the Medicare Advantage program covering adults 65 and older.
Neidorff referred to the company as a “leader in government-sponsored healthcare.”
On July 1, Centene closed its acquisition of Fidelis Care, a Medicaid managed care company for people New York. The company expects to add $11 billion in revenue as a result.
The company received several questions about the Trump administration’s recent decision to suspend risk adjustment payments during its call with investors. The program shifts payments between insurers and is intended to reduce incentives for health insurers to try to bring in only healthy customers and avoid customers with pre-existing medical conditions that need ongoing treatment, such as cancer or diabetes.
Neidorff said that it expected the administration to quickly resolve the issue and that the company would continue to advocate for the program operating as it has been.
