Despite growing support for Medicare for All that could jeopardize their future, America's major health insurers are riding pretty high. According to a recent analysis from Modern Health care, the nation's seven largest publicly traded health insurers saw revenues of $913 billion in 2019. While a single-payer system would upend the current business model for health insurers, expansion of current Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans, combined with increased M&A activity, contributed to a 66 percent increase in profits in 2019. Related: 10 most profitable companies in the health care sector Among the seven major players analysed by Modern Healthcare--Anthem, Centene Corp., Cigna, CVS Health, Humana, Molina Healthcare and UnitedHealth Group--CVS saw the greatest increase in profits, going from a loss in 2018 to a net income of $6.6 billion in 2019. The dramatic change is a result of the pharmacy company's merger with health insurer Aetna. Merger activity also boosted the profits of Cigna, which completed its merger with Express Scripts in 2018. Its fourth-quarter revenue soared from $14.3 billion in 2018 to $38.2 billion in 2019, netting an overall $5 billion in profit for the year. Those profits are still small compared to the country's largest insurer, UnitedHealth, which drew in $14.2 billion in profits last year. Not included in Modern Healthcare's calculations was not-for-profit insurer Kaiser Permanente, which posted a nearly three-fold increase in profits in 2019. The company credits its $7.4 billion net income to a combination of strong operating performance as well as investment performance. Will 2020 see a continued trend in insurers' impressive financial performance? While major health care reform legislation continues to be more of a toothless threat, increased emphasis on transparency, new entrants and disruptors such as Amazon and joint-venture Haven, as well as overall economic concerns, may put something of a damper on insurers' revenues in the year to come. Check out the slideshow above to see how much the industry's health insurance giants earned this year. Read more: |

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