Medicaid Utilization Jitters Cloud 'Fine’ 2Q for Elevance

Despite reporting a strong balance sheet for the second quarter of 2024, Elevance Health, Inc. faced a selloff that seemed to be prompted by higher-than-expected utilization in the insurer’s Medicaid book of business. On July 17, the day that Elevance reported its results, its stock price dropped by $32.21 over the full day of trading, a 5.82% decrease, to settle at $520.93 — despite year-over-year increases in operating gain and operating margin, as well as better-than-expected medical loss ratio (MLR) performance. 

Elevance took in $43.2 billion in operating revenue in the quarter, down $200 million year over year. Its operating gain increased by $200 million year over year to $2.8 billion, and operating margin increased by 0.3% year over year to 6.4%. Elevance posted an MLR of 86.3%, below the Wall Street consensus of 86.4%.