How insurance upstart Alignment kept medical costs in check while Medicare Advantage plans struggled

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High med­ical costs ate away at the prof­its of big Medicare Ad­van­tage in­sur­ers CVS Health and Hu­mana in the first quar­ter of 2024, but up­start in­sur­er Align­ment Health came away large­ly in­tact.

Cal­i­for­nia-based Align­ment, which pri­mar­i­ly serves se­niors en­rolled in the pri­vate al­ter­na­tive to the tra­di­tion­al Medicare pro­gram, said its mem­ber­ship soared by more than 50% in the first three months of the year over the same time in 2023. De­spite the in­flux of new mem­bers, Align­ment man­aged to keep its mem­bers’ med­ical spend­ing in check. Align­ment’s shares jumped 26% on Fri­day af­ter it re­port­ed its re­sults Thurs­day evening.

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Opinion | What If…?

Fred Pelzman is an associate professor of medicine at Weill Cornell, and has been a practicing internist for nearly 30 years. He is medical director

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