FollowLast Friday, the U.S. health insurer Humana Inc. reported that its third-quarter profits went lower than the estimates of Wall Street.
The company said that the reasons why its profits went down is because of the high cost that it paid for hepatitis C treatments as well as its investments in the Obama health insurance exchanges.
As for the incoming year 2015, the top health insurer in the U.S. said that it expects its profits to rise since it will be cutting down on its expenses for state-based health contracts. Also, it said that the company’s huge Medicare business benefits from the new rating systems that the government has set.
Human mentioned too that next year’s steady networks and relatively smooth premiums should help the company pick up its return on investment and raise its membership.
This year, the health insurer added 1.8 million new clients which include 200,000 Medicaid programs for the poor and 580,000 in individual health plans.
The anticipated earnings of Humana for 2015 are between $8.50 and $9.00 per share which should make the company boost its profits from the current year’s outlook of $7.40 to $7.60 per share.
On the other hand, analysts have set their estimates for Humana’s net profits for 2015 of $290 million which is equivalent to earnings of $1.85 per share.
