Medicare Advantage plans face tiny pay raise from Trump admin| STAT

Bob Herman covers health insurance, government programs, hospitals, physicians, and other providers — reporting on how money influences those businesses and shapes what we all pay for care. He is also the author of the Health Care Inc. newsletter. You can reach Bob on Signal at bobjherman.09.

The Trump administration plans to increase payments to next year’s Medicare Advantage plans by less than 0.1% on average — far below what the industry had expected.

Several Wall Street analysts expected pay increases of 4%-6%, but a crucial measure of Medicare spending came in below consensus estimates. The stock prices of the nation’s largest Medicare Advantage insurers — UnitedHealth Group, Humana, and CVS Health — all fell by more than 9% in after-hours trading.

Trump’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, led by Mehmet Oz, also proposed to restrict further how insurers can code the illnesses of their Medicare Advantage enrollees. The regulation likely will lead to blowback from the health insurance industry, which has criticized recent changes to Medicare Advantage and argued their profit margins have taken hits.