Health Plan Weekly

Although health plans have started to comply with a federal transparency rule that requires them to publicly post reams of information about provider payments, “multiple problems have rendered the published data largely inaccessible and unusable,” according to a new report. 

The report, produced by Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR), is the product of a recent collaboration between a slew of prominent health policy and economics researchers who were convened by CHIR Director Sabrina Corlette. The idea was to develop recommendations that would make the “Transparency in Coverage” regulation more effective in its quest to shine a light on health care cost information. 

The coming year is unlikely to see any major new policy developments come out of the split Congress, but health insurers and other stakeholders will have their hands full figuring out the implications of the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Medicare drug price negotiation policy, according to a Jan. 18 panel of Avalere Health experts. 

Last November’s election led to divided control of Congress, with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and Democrats in control of the Senate. Given that, “the activity this year, over the next two years, is going to look quite a bit different than we saw in Congress from the previous two years,” said Matt Kazan, managing director at Avalere.  

During the company’s recent conference call to discuss fourth-quarter and full-year 2022 financial results, UnitedHealth Group executives touched on subjects ranging from the historically bad flu season to the future of the company’s data analytics division. All in all, equities analysts declared the health care giant to be on strong footing as 2023 gets underway — a positive sign, they say, for a managed care sector that tends to follow where UnitedHealth leads. 

“Within MCOs, there is little fundamental concern,” Jefferies analysts advised investors on Jan. 17, with each MCO’s earnings per share (EPS) likely to see a compound annual growth rate of about 12% through 2024. And while UnitedHealth shares are priced at a “nearly unprecedented 35% premium” relative to its peers, the analysts suggested that the diversified firm’s OptumInsight and OptumHealth divisions “make a case for the widening spread.” 

See a full list of director compensation for Presidents and/or CEOs of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Affiliates at https://bit.ly/3GPOdyK, compiled by AIS Health.

N/A = Not Available.

Compensation data for Jared Short includes payments allocated to Regence insurance operations in Washington state, Oregon and Utah but not Idaho.

SOURCE/METHODOLOGY: All data is compiled from individual health insurance companies, state insurance department documents and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Health plans selected based on commercial medical risk enrollment as of the beginning of 2022, per AIS’s Directory of Health Plans.