So what are the largest health insurance companies by membership? The healthcare insurance system is a cardinal question all over the world. The American healthcare insurance system isn’t an exception. The problem of healthcare insurance was brought into the limelight by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who talked about his newborn son’s pre-existing heart condition and the perplexing discrimination of insurance programs. Insider Monkey recently published an article in which we can find lots of interesting facts about this topic. As I am not an expert of this topic, I left the items from Insider Monkey’s list as it is.
According to a survey by Gallup the number of uninsured Americans increased to 11.3% in the first quarter of 2017, compared to 10.9% in the third and fourth quarters of 2016. Experts also believe that replacement of Obamacare will result in increased insurance premiums. Healthcare companies have extended the announcement of their 2018 premiums until July amid the confusion regarding Obamacare. Companies are also clueless as to when they’ll be receiving federal subsidies to help cover people on individual insurance plans. A new comprehensive study of the possible outcomes of Trumpcare suggests that the new health law will force low-income families to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars more for insurance. The state of Maryland has already requested premium increases from the five insurers in its market. There are two main insurance programs in the U.S. healthcare system, Medicaid and Medicare. Medicare is a special assistance program for older citizens, while Medicaid is for low-income people and for those people who have other financial problems and needs. There are couple of insurance companies that cover millions of people in the USA.
Now we have picked three companies from Insider Monkey’s list: WellCare Health Plans, Inc (NYSE:WCG); Highmark; and Kaiser Permanente. WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE:WCG) is a Florida-based healthcare company which covered about 3.68 million Americans under the Medicare and Medicaid managed care health plans. WellCare’s recently reported its first quarter results, according to which it earned $1.61 per share on $3.92 billion in revenue, better than analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.18 in EPS and $3.86 billion in revenue. WellCare expects to earn $6.55-$6.80 per share this year. Highmark, a Pennsylvania-based healthcare company which serves 29 counties in Western Pennsylvania, has 5.3 million members. The company offers the largest health plan in the states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware. Next on the list of the 10 largest health insurance companies by membership is Kaiser Permanente, a California-based managed care consortium, which was founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield. As of the end of 2016, Kaiser had a total of 10.7 million members. The company added 429,000 members in 2016, an increase of 4.2% compared to 2015. Earlier this year, Kaiser Permanente completed its $1.8 billion acquisition of non-profit healthcare organization Group Health Cooperative.
For any further interesting information, you should read Insider Monkey’s article about the largest insurance companies by membership.
