Health Plan Weekly

✦ Centene Corp. has appointed Drew Asher as its new chief financial officer (CFO) and executive vice president, replacing Jeffrey Schwaneke, who is rotating to manage the firm’s HealthCare Enterprises venture capital division. Asher joined Centene in early 2020 when the company acquired WellCare, where Asher was CFO for six years. In the year since, Asher has managed Centene’s Specialty division. Schwaneke will help manage “a portfolio of high growth companies independent of Centene health plans, designing differentiated platform capabilities and delivering industry-leading products and services to third-party customers.” Read more at https://bit.ly/2SFFzxg.

✦ Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Care subsidiary closed its first deal to offer app-based care services to an employer, according to press reports. The contract is with fitness equipment firm Peloton Interactive, Inc.’s recently acquired subsidiary Precor. The tech and e-commerce giant revealed in March that it would make Amazon Care available to enterprise clients which, like Precor, are based near Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, and said it will eventually roll out employer offerings nationwide. Press releases from Amazon have positioned the employer-facing offering as an in-network, virtual primary and urgent care provider for self-insured employers. Read more at https://bit.ly/33G6ewb.

California’s individual health exchange successfully used inexpensive email and letters to encourage consumers to switch to lower-cost coverage that provided them with better benefits, according to new research. The 2019 program from Covered California potentially could be duplicated in other states to help consumers save on coverage, according to the study, which was published in Health Affairs.

During the 2019 open enrollment period for California’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace, Covered California used a randomized intervention to see if low-income beneficiaries, particularly those who earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level, could be encouraged to enroll in silver plans with cost-sharing reduction (CSR) subsidies, which made more sense for them.

While Cigna Corp. credited its Evernorth health services division as the primary driving force behind its strong first-quarter 2021 earnings, the company’s management and equities analysts alike seemed satisfied by the performance of Cigna’s health insurance business. And Cigna’s executives expressed optimism about the firm’s growth in certain commercial markets.

Cigna reported adjusted income from operations of $987 million and adjusted revenues of $10.4 billion for its U.S. Medical segment, and its first-quarter earnings for that segment were “slightly ahead of our expectations,” said Chief Financial Officer Brian Evanko during the company’s May 7 conference call to discuss financial results. Those results were driven in part by investment income but “partially offset by a non-recurring litigation settlement,” Jefferies analyst David Windley advised investors in a May 8 research note.

With a nationwide public option now looking unlikely under President Joe Biden, an increasing number of states are trying to implement their own government-sponsored alternative to commercial insurance in a bid to lower rising costs.

Colorado almost passed a public option, and Connecticut’s leaders are taking a hard look at creating their own. Meanwhile, a committee in Nevada’s legislature is debating the merits of implementing a public insurance option that sets a target of reducing average premium costs by 15% within five years and would be available starting in 2026 (HPW 5/7/21, p 7). Although payers and providers have successfully headed off Colorado’s public option proposal, and may do so elsewhere, there is increasing pressure at the state level across the country to act on health care costs.