Many Plans Still Showing Losses
Despite a reasonable recovery among the national health players in Q2 2026, HealthScape Advisors, part of Chartis, says health plans remain under significant financial pressure. Its annual look at health plans’ financial performance finds that plans posting an operating loss increased over the past several years. In 2023, 54% of health plans reported an operating loss, and that grew to 70% in 2024. And in 2025, that rose again to 73%.
HealthScape says operating losses are concentrated among regional plans and Blues plans, with 72% of regional insurers and 83% of Blues reporting one in 2025. Fourteen percent of national payers reported an operating loss in 2023 and 2024, but the rate jumped to 43% in 2025.
Read my blog last week on the national players here: https://www.healthcarelabyrinth.com/are-insurers-turning-the-financial-corner-yes-but-there-is-more-work-to-be-done/
#healthplans #margins
KFF Shows How Hospitals Drive Price Growth
Healthcare policy group KFF covered the pernicious impact of hospital consolidation on price in the marketplace. KFF notes that large hospital systems, created in great measure by mergers, can dominate the competition and push up healthcare costs. It says that while many factors impact price, hospitals with few competitors charge more.
KFF adds that when insurers face higher hospital prices, they pass the costs on and raise the prices they charge for everyone’s health insurance. That is yet another downstream impact.
KFF notes that before the price transparency rules, it was very hard to detect the effects of consolidation on price.
#hospitals #consolidation #transparency
Becker’s Counts 11 Plans Now Stopping Exchange Offerings in 2027
Becker’s Payer now counts eleven health plans that have announced they will stop offering Exchange plans in 2027, either nationally or in specific states.
#exchanges #coverage
https://www.beckerspayer.com/payer/aca/6-insurers-exiting-aca-markets/
— Marc S. Ryan
