by Leslie Small
Even as some recent headlines have reignited concerns about the
long-term prospects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Centene Corp. CEO Michael
Neidorff told investors that he continues to see more reasons to be optimistic
than not.
"It is clear Medicaid and the services we provide are
needed more than ever," Neidorff said during the company's fourth-quarter
earnings call. He also said the most recent ACA marketplace enrollment figures
show that "there continues to be consistent demand for affordable, high-quality
health care coverage." As of January, Centene had boosted its paid
ACA exchange membership to 2 million, Neidorff said, and it now controls 20% of
that market.
Though legislative efforts to repeal and replace the ACA are now
absent from Congress' near-term agenda, the latest form of uncertainty comes
from a federal judge's December ruling that the entire law is unconstitutional
due to the zeroing-out of the individual mandate.
Neidorff expressed little concern about that development.
"We have not been distracted by ACA legal headlines, as we agree with all
the legal experts it will be reversed," he said.
Leerink's Ana Gupte, though, still had concerns. "While we
agree with the CEO view that the TX [Texas] lawsuit decision to overturn the
ACA will play out favorably at least in SCOTUS [the Supreme Court], policy
uncertainty on this dimension impacts 40%+ of earnings," she wrote in a
research note.
From
Health Plan Weekly
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