Despite facing several headwinds over the next year, including anticipated deterioration in Medicare Advantage star ratings and falling Medicaid enrollment, Centene Corp. increased its full-year 2022 earnings projections and unveiled the latest steps in its ongoing value creation plan.

The moves pleased investors, who drove Centene shares to a 52-week high, closing at $93.15 on July 26, the day financial results were posted.

Centene posted second-quarter 2022 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.77 on revenues of $35.9 billion, besting analysts’ estimate of $1.69. Adjustments included a charge of $1.45 billion related to real-estate divestitures, with $744 million for leased space and $706 million for owned real estate assets. Including the charge and other adjustments, Centene reported a second-quarter 2022 loss of $129 million, or 29 cents per share.

Humana Inc. delivered robust financial results in the second quarter of 2020, with earnings far outstripping the Wall Street consensus. The Medicare Advantage-focused insurer credited lower-than-expected utilization for the strong result, provided investors with more detail about its plans to reorganize following several notable provider transactions, and touted plans to expand its Medicaid business.

Humana took in more than $23.7 billion in adjusted earnings in the second quarter, generating $959 million in adjusted cash flow and adjusted earnings per share of $8.67, beating the Street’s estimate by about $1.00 per share. The firm’s medical loss ratio (MLR) for the quarter was 85.8%. Executives raised the company’s end-of-year earnings projection by $0.25, a move that Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Michael Wiederhorn said “reflect[s] some conservatism” in a July 27 note to investors.

Suddenly, the U.S. Senate may be about to pass a drug price reform package and extend enhanced individual marketplace subsidies through 2025. West Virginia centrist Democrat Joe Manchin — who has almost singlehandedly held up progress on the Biden administration’s agenda — in recent days reached a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York to move on the administration’s top health care priorities, along with climate change mitigation and tax reforms, in a bill that the upper chamber may pass through budget reconciliation before its annual summer break.

Approximately 3 million people currently enrolled in the individual marketplace could lose coverage, and more would see premiums double if the Congress fails to extend the American Rescue Plan Act’s subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of this year.

ARPA lowers the share of income enrollees need to contribute toward premiums for households making between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level, and it temporarily caps enrollees with income above 400% of the FPL from paying more than 8.5% of their income for a silver plan premium. If the subsidies expire, 8.9 million people would be allowed to remain in the marketplace but experience premium subsidy loss. An additional 1.5 million may lose subsidies entirely but choose to remain insured, according to an HHS projection.

Recent hospital transactions have mainly involved large hospital systems combining with other big providers, according to a report by Kaufman Hall. During the second quarter of this year, the smaller party of hospital mergers that took place in the quarter had revenues of $1.47 billion on average — more than double the average value of the smaller partner in transactions between 2016 and 2021. Overall, hospital deal volume has slowed, with only 13 transactions announced in the second quarter of 2022 compared to a recent high of 31 transactions in the second quarter of 2017. “We’re seeing that what used to be a hospital M&A game is become a bit more of a system M&A game,” Kaufman Hall managing director Anu Singh told AIS Health earlier this year.

Morgan Health, JPMorgan Chase Co.’s health care venture arm, will invest $30 million in startup ERISA carrier Centivo Corp. The investment is part of Centivo’s Series B-1 financing round. Centivo’s strategy is based on value-based care arrangements with providers. A Morgan Health press release claimed that “among mid-size and large employers, Centivo’s typical client has saved 15 to 30 percent annually compared to traditional insurance models. In addition, members’ medical and pharmacy out-of-pocket cost has, on average, been reduced to less than $350 per person per year. These cost reductions have occurred all while increasing primary care utilization by more than 30 percent and strengthening quality through an advanced primary care-centered clinical model.” Centivo operates in 13 states. JPMorgan launched Morgan Health following the collapse of Haven, a health care joint venture with Amazon.com, Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Although the prediabetes prevalence rate increased by 4.8 percentage points between 2010 and 2020, access to the National Diabetes Prevention Program remained limited, with only 3% of people with prediabetes participating in the program, according to a recent Health Affairs study. The researchers estimated 13.5% prevalence of diagnosed prediabetes and 30% of potentially undiagnosed prediabetes in 2020, using two national surveys.

The National Diabetes Prevention Program — an intensive 12-month, group-based, lifestyle intervention to prevent or delay type 2 diabetes — remained underused and undersupplied. Only 5% of patients diagnosed with prediabetes were referred to such a program. In general, men were more likely to be referred but less likely to participate than women.

Elevance Health Inc. (formerly known as Anthem, Inc.) posted strong results for the second quarter of 2022, raising its end-of-year earnings projection and earning praise from Wall Street. However, the company’s strong results — which were driven by high profitability in Medicare, Medicaid and PBM earnings — could be less robust in the third quarter, executives said, with COVID-19 surging once again due to the BA.5 variant.

The insurer reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.29, which beat the Wall Street consensus of approximately $0.28 by 4%, according to Evercore ISI analyst Michael Newshel. According to an Elevance press release, revenue grew by 15.6% year over year to reach $38.5 billion, while profits grew by 13.7% year over year to nearly $2.4 billion. Enrollment reached 47.1 million members, up 2.7 million or 6.1% year over year. The medical loss ratio (MLR) companywide was 87%.

In a series of articles in the July issue of the health policy journal Health Affairs, researchers evaluated diabetes care in the United States through several lenses, including care management, prevention, interventions, health equity, quality measures and value-based payment design. Several of them also spoke at a July 19 policy briefing in which a key message was that the fragmented U.S. health system is contributing to a plateau in improving diabetes care — and value-based diabetes payment programs may be causing still more fragmentation.

Despite remarkable advances in clinical understanding and treatments for diabetes, the U.S. has stagnated over the past decade in preventing and managing the condition, said Mohammed Ali, a professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health at Emory University. Ali served as the theme advisor for Health Affairs’ diabetes-focused issue and also was a co-author of the issue’s overview article, “Diabetes And The Fragmented State Of US Health Care And Policy.”

Starting as early as next year, UnitedHealth Group expects to have no co-pays or out-of-pocket costs for members in its UnitedHealthcare division’s standard fully insured group plans who take several medications, including insulins. The managed care organization made the announcement on July 15, coinciding with the release of the company’s second quarter financial results that beat Wall Street analyst expectations.

UnitedHealth increased its adjusted net earnings per share (EPS) guidance for the year to $21.40 to $21.90, up from its previous guidance of $21.20 to $21.70 issued during its first quarter earnings call in April.