UnitedHealth's 1Q profit tumbles 8 percent

[unhappycamper]

http://www.adn.com/2014/04/17/3429272/unitedhealths-1q-profit-tumbles.html?sp=/99/171/

UnitedHealth's 1Q profit tumbles 8 percent
By TOM MURPHY
AP Business Writer
April 17, 2014 Updated 12 minutes ago

UnitedHealth Group's first-quarter net income slid 8 percent as fees and funding cuts from the health care overhaul helped dent the performance of the nation's largest health insurer.

UnitedHealth said Thursday it earned $1.1 billion, or $1.10 per share, in the three months that ended March 31. That's down from $1.19 billion, or $1.16 per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose nearly 5 percent to $31.71 billion.

Analysts expected earnings of $1.09 per share on $32.01 billion in revenue, according to FactSet.

The Minnetonka, Minn., company said the overhaul and government budget cuts added about 35 cents per share in costs during the quarter. The overhaul aims to provide coverage for millions of uninsured people, but it also began charging an industry-wide fee this year, and the law is scaling back funding for Medicare Advantage plans, which are privately run versions of the government's Medicare program.


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Is it time for a single-payer health care yet?

[Demeter]

1. Past time

[DURHAM D]

2. It is time to get rid of Medicare Advantage.

[WhiteTara]

3. The law states they can only make so much off of illness

and so to me that is no surprise.

[siligut]

4. " . . . government budget cuts . . ." i.e., crackdown on medicare fraud

Of course it's time, but until for-profit healthcare is no longer so lucrative, we won't see single-payer health care.

[yallerdawg]

5. Crying all the way to the bank

As I understand it, when it all shakes out, the private insurers are guaranteed a fixed profit margin. If they go over in profit, they are required to rebate the insured. If they come under, they will be permitted and justified in raising our premiums.

But in this game, with their experience, the private for-profit insurers -- you know! -- have run all the dollars before they wrote the Affordable Care Act, and everything that happens now is just part of the show.

If you are allowed a 20% profit after expenses, how do you increase the 20% dollar amount? The Feds are betting by adding more customers.

The insurers win every which way -- if more revenue from customers, if expenses increase, if everything which is wrong with private insurance continues.

Their profit margin is now law!

[justhanginon]

6. In light of their profits

tumbling 8% they have reduced the chief execs pay to only $486,000,000,000,000,000 but will compensate him for the reduction by giving him 286,000,000,000 in stock options. Good times!