What Should Health Care Hope for in the Midterm Elections?

by Leslie Small

As the midterm elections draw closer, it’s become clear that health care is a major campaign issue for candidates on both sides of the aisle. But how will the results of the races affect the health care industry itself?

To Joel Ario, managing director of Manatt Health, the best-case scenario would be a divided government — with Democrats winning the House, the Senate or both, and facing off against a Republican White House.

“If the Republicans were to retain everything, there would be a concern that they would feel obligated to do more aggressive [Affordable Care Act] repeal and replace again, and as you’ve seen, nobody really in the industry of significance is in favor of another repeal and replace,” he tells AIS Health.

The bottom line, he says, is that the prospect of lawmakers getting little done is more favorable to an industry that generally dislikes instability and sudden policy shifts.

To Leerink analyst Ana Gupte, meanwhile, the possible election outcomes could mean different things to different types of health insurers.

“We see the most upside opportunity in Managed Medicaid stocks [such as Centene Corp. and Molina Healthcare, Inc.]…with a Blue Wave increasing Red state Medicaid expansions with future protection from judicial or legislative downside on Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) under a D-supermajority post 2020,” she wrote in an Oct. 3 research note.

For Medicare Advantage-focused insurers like Humana Inc., “a Red Wave offers under-appreciated upside,” Gupte wrote. Still, “a Blue Wave only poses headline risk given bipartisan support for MA in Congress,” she added.

From Health Plan Weekly

Subscribers may read the in-depth article online. Learn more about subscribing to AIS Health's publications.