Corporate Research Group’s Weblog

O.K., this is officially a trend.  Buoyed by strong first-quarter performance, Aetna Inc. (Hartford, CT) raised its full-year 2010 earnings forecast to between $2.75 and $2.85 per share, compared to a prior forecast of $2.55 to $2.65.  That makes Aetna the fifth major health plan to report strong first-quarter results, and the fourth major plan to raise its 2010 earnings forecast (see prior post).  The company attributed the strong results to a better-than-expected first-quarter commercial medical cost ratio of 81.1%, down 60 basis points from a year earlier.  Premium rate increases are exceeding medical cost trends of 8.5% to 9.5%, with the company squarely focused on margin improvement over membership growth.  Medical membership fell 2% in the quarter to 18.7 million.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 at 11:33 am and is filed under Managed Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.