SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Road Walker who wrote (24556)8/20/2012 10:40:19 AM
From: John Koligman1 Recommendation  Respond to of 42652
 
This is just the latest of several recent deals where a large insurer is buying it's way into the Medicare and Medicaid business...

"Bankers and investors see the wave of health insurer consolidation accelerating further as the United States moves to implement President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul"

Aetna to buy Coventry, expand Medicare/Medicaid business

By Debra Sherman

Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:12am EDT

(Reuters) - Health insurer Aetna Inc said on Monday that it would buy rival Coventry Health Care Inc for $5.6 billion to increase its share of U.S. government-backed Medicare and Medicaid business.

The purchase, which will add more than 5 million members to Aetna's ranks, comes just weeks after rival WellPoint Inc struck a deal to buy Amerigroup Corp in a major expansion of its Medicaid business, administering the government's health plan for the poor.

Bankers and investors see the wave of health insurer consolidation accelerating further as the United States moves to implement President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul.

The U.S. health reform law aims to provide coverage for 16 million more Americans through privately run insurance exchanges in each state and will expand Medicaid eligibility for an additional 16 million people by raising limits on household income.

"Integrating Coventry into Aetna will complement our strategy to expand our core insurance business, increase our presence in the fast-growing government sector and expand our relationships with providers in local geographies," Aetna Chief Executive Officer Mark Bertolini said in a statement.

Under the deal, Aetna will pay $42.08 per share - $27.30 in cash and 0.3885 of its common shares. That is a 20.4 percent premium over Coventry's closing stock price of $34.94 on Friday.

Aetna said the purchase would help lift its share of revenue from its government business to more than 30 percent from 23 percent.

It will help Aetna add nearly 4 million medical members and 1.5 million Medicare Part D members. Medicare Part D is a federal program that reduces prescription drug costs for beneficiaries of the government plan for the elderly.

Shares of Coventry rose above the offer price, gaining 21 percent to $42.36 in premarket trading on Monday.

Including the assumption of Coventry debt, the sale is valued at $7.3 billion, the companies said.

Aetna said it planned to finance the cash portion of the transaction with a combination of cash on hand and by issuing about $2.5 billion of new debt and commercial paper.

The company said it expected the deal to add modestly to operating earnings per share in 2013, 45 cents per share in 2014 and 90 cents in 2015.

Aetna shares closed at $38.04 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

In July, WellPoint said it would buy rival Amerigroup for $4.46 billion, nearly doubling its Medicaid business.

Last October, Cigna Corp agreed to buy HealthSpring Inc for $3.8 billion to strengthen its Medicare business.



To: Road Walker who wrote (24556)8/20/2012 10:45:50 AM
From: longnshort1 Recommendation  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 42652
 
Robert Gibbs Confirms Existence of Obamacare Death Panels

They all laughed at Sarah Palin when she started talking about death panels. They aren't called that but the President Obama’s health care law empowers IPAB an “unelected, unaccountable” panel of bureaucrats to make decisions that will cause people to lose access to health care treatments. Who says so? After a bit of adept questioning by Fox's Chris Wallace--Robert Gibbs, Obama's former press secretary admitted: (if you cannot see video below, please click here)





Fox's Chris Wallace: "That is the argument that the Obama campaign makes - that the $716 billion is all in cuts to providers and insurance companies and it will have no effect on benefits or services to the beneficiaries. Let me ask my question. Medicare's own actuary, own actuary of Medicare - not of the Romney campaign - says that is impossible. That you can't have the same services for $716 billion less. And let's put up some of what the Medicare actuary says. They say that 15 percent of Medicare providers will be unprofitable by 2019. 25 percent of Medicare providers will be unprofitable by 2030. And the Medicare actuary concludes - this is his quote - in practice Medicare providers could not sustain continued negative margins and, absent legislative changes, would have to withdraw - withdraw - from providing services to Medicare beneficiaries, merge with other provider groups or shift substantial portions of the Medicare costs it to their non-Medicare non-Medicaid providers. In other words, according to the actuary, Medicare patients, millions of them will lose access to Medicare benefits."

Senior Obama Campaign Adviser Robert Gibbs: "If Medicare companies that are involved in the program continue doing what they are doing, which is inefficient."

Wallace: "Wait a minute. The actuary says, in practice, Medicare providers could not sustain continuing negative margins."

Gibbs: "If Medicare providers continue to do what we are doing. Right now, under the old program, Chris, if a senior got readmitted over and over and over to the hospital for the same illness, they got paid every single time the senior got admitted into the hospital. Why not strengthen the benefit by adding preventive health care to it and trying to ensure that the patient gets accountable care and treated before they get that disease."

Wallace: "If the providers don't do it, then what happens is, under your plan, this unelected board, 15 bureaucrats come in and they decide what, well, you are laughing at it but that is it. The IPAB."

Gibbs: "I guess I am laughing at your characterization of it."

Wallace: "Are they an elected board?"

Gibbs: "They are medical professionals, they are people we trust to make medical decisions."

Wallace: "Are they elected by anybody? They are an unaccountable unelected board that comes in and will make decisions on what the providers and what hospitals have to do and Congress either has to vote it all up or all down." This proves Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi correct, Palin was right about the death panels, and Pelosi was right when she said we wouldn't know what was in Obamacare until was passed. We know now that Obama's people have stopped lying.

yidwithlid.blogspot.com