2023-11-29 11:34:16 ET
Ahead of its annual investor conference on Wednesday, UnitedHealth Group ( NYSE: UNH ), the largest health insurer in the U.S., set its 2024 target for Medicare Advantage enrollments below Wall Street forecasts.
The company said that in 2024, 8.02M – 8.07M Americans will benefit from its Medicare Advantage plans, a private version of the federal health program for seniors.
While that indicated an improvement of 450K–550K from projections for 2023, analysts expected the company to report 8.4M Medicare Advantage members next year, according to Bloomberg data.
UnitedHealth's ( UNH ) smaller peers in the Medicare Advantage market, Humana ( HUM ), Alignment Healthcare ( ALHC ), Clover Health ( CLOV ), and CVS Health ( CVS ), are trading lower.
"This appears to be a disappointment," TD Cowen analyst Gary Taylor wrote, noting that the 2024 growth rate of 5% fell short of 11% growth YTD and that the company had expected its membership growth to exceed that of the overall market.
UNH also said that its medical loss ratio for next year will reach 84% at the midpoint, compared to analysts' average estimate of 83%.
Ahead of the event, UnitedHealth ( UNH ) reaffirmed its 2023 earnings guidance and set its 2024 profit outlook, largely in line with forecasts.
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UnitedHealth sets 2024 Medicare memberships below consensus