Cigna Profits As Medicare Softens Penalty Policy

(By – Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News)

Cigna will get to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus payments for some of itsMedicare Advantage plans, despite recently-imposed sanctions for mismanaging those plans in ways that federal officials said threatened seniors’ health and safety.

Securities analysts are raising their 2017 earnings estimates for Cigna in reaction to a broad policy change that Medicare quietly released in a memo Tuesday. At the same time, consumer advocates are raising concerns that the Obama administration’s move will hurt efforts to keep pressure on the private insurance plans, which are an alternative to traditional Medicare. The federal government pays the plans to handle beneficiaries’ care. Read more…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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