Reuters: Hot Stocks: UPDATE 1-Humana says Medicare rate improved, insurer shares rise

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-Humana says Medicare rate improved, insurer shares rise Apr 2nd 2013, 14:07 Tue Apr 2, 2013 10:07am EDT (Adds insurer share moves, analyst) April 2 (Reuters) - Humana Inc said on Tuesday that the government's increase in its payment rate for Medicare Advantage in 2014 is an improvement over a proposed reduction but said that "meaningful challenges" in certain geographical areas are ahead. Shares in insurers, including Humana, UnitedHealth Group Inc , Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp and WellPoint Inc rose sharply in Tuesday morning trading. The government announced after the market closed on Monday that it would raise the reimbursement rate instead of cutting it by 2.3 percent, as it had initially proposed in February. "The news is clearly a victory for the health plans," CRT Capital Group analyst Sheryl Skolnick said in a research note. Other cuts and coding changes related to the Affordable Care Act will nearly offset the increase in reimbursement, Humana said in a statement, and it is still determining what the negative impact will be on its Medicare insurance program. Insurers are reimbursed for Medicare Advantage, private insurance for seniors and the disabled by the government. This type of insurance accounts for about two-thirds of Humana's annual revenues. Insurers had lobbied loudly against the proposed cut, saying it would cost the industry $11 billion. Humana shares were up 7.3 percent at $80.48, UnitedHealth was up 6.7 percent at $62.90, Aetna was up 4.1 percent at $54.52, Cigna was up 4 percent at $65.44 and WellPoint was up 3.7 percent at $69.94. (Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions