Pelosi’s ‘Immoral’ Insurers May Gain in Obama Plan
By Alex Nussbaum
Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. health-care overhaul proposed in Congress will do more than impose greater controls on private insurers. It will also swell their profits.
New legislation may generate 10 million more customers for Amerigroup Corp.,UnitedHealth Group Inc. and other companies that administer Medicaid, the government plan that covers the poorest Americans, according to James Carlson, Amerigroup’s chief executive officer. Molina Healthcare Inc.’s Medicaid enrollment may jump by 43 percent, CEO J. Mario Molina said. WellPoint Inc., the largest U.S. insurer, may also gain.
While President Barack Obama has pitched his revamping of health care as a bid to “keep insurance companies honest,” expanding Medicaid is likely to offset any losses from new regulations and taxes, at least for insurers who specialize in the program, Carlson said.
“Most of what we’re reading would grow our business dramatically,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think you can say that about a lot of other participants in the health-care system.”
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