UnitedHealth Updates: Expecting Slower Growth In 2013

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UnitedHealth Group

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) held its annual investor conference last week to provide business updates. The key takeaway from the conference was that the health insurance provider expects to exhibit slower growth in 2013 due to a decline in fully insured commercial customers. The reason attributed to this expected decline is more businesses are seen covering healthcare costs themselves even as they hire the company to manage healthcare benefits. However, the company does expect to add 3.5 million-4 million new members on back of continued growth in other businesses including Medicare Advantage healthcare and commercial fee-based plans. [1]

We are analyzing the impact of UnitedHealth’s observations and will soon be updating our model and price estimate for the company, which currently stands at $70, to reflect these developments.

We, however, are still bullish on the company’s prospects going forward as re-election of Barack Obama as the U.S. president will only help re-enforce The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”) that will allow the company to meaningfully increase its enrollments over the next four years. We will be writing a follow-up article to discuss the same in detail.

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Meanwhile, using our interactive charts, you can see how a change in its market share in private insurance business (which in-turn affects the number of enrollments) impacts our price estimate.

See Full Analysis For UnitedHealth Group Here

 

We will be writing a follow-up article to discuss the same in detail.
Notes:
  1. 2012 Investor Conference, UnitedHealth, Nov 27 2012 []