Medicaid, Medicare Enrollment Boost Centene

Centene’s membership grew by more than 1 million in the third quarter compared to last year thanks to a big increase in enrollment in its Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans, the company reported Tuesday.

Centene, which sells an array of government subsidized health insurance including Obamacare, said total “managed care membership” increased by 1.4 million members, or five percent, compared to the end of the third quarter of 2020.

Such growth helped Centene’s revenues jump 11% to $32.4 billion. Net income rose nearly 3% to $584 million, or 99 cents a share, compared to $568 million, or 97 cents a share in the year ago period.

Medicaid membership ended the third quarter at nearly 14.8 million compared to nearly 13.2 million in the year ago period while Medicare enrollment jumped to 1.2 million compared to 953,800 in the year ago period.

The addition of new membership in Medicaid for poor Americans and Medicare plans for seniors helped offset a decline in individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare. The Obamacare business was also hit with higher costs in the third quarter due to a spike in cases of COVID-19’s Delta variant in August, Centene executives told analysts on a call Tuesday morning to discuss earnings.

Centene is the largest provider of Obamacare in the country with nearly 2.2 million members. Executives said Centene plans to launch such plans in five new states for 2022.

“Our performance provides a strong foundation for our value creation plan, which we have initiated to fully leverage our size and scale going forward,” Centene chairman and chief executive officer Michael Neidorff said.