Nevada Health Insurance Bcbs

WellPoint (WLP) Given "Overweight" Rating by Morgan Stanley (MS) Analysts

WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) had their "overweight" rating reiterated by equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday.

Separately, analysts at Zacks Investment Research downgraded shares of WellPoint from an "outperform" rating to a "neutral" rating in a research note to investors on Friday, August 26th. Also, analysts at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) cut their price target on shares of WellPoint to $85.00 in a research note to investors on Thursday, July 28th. They now have a "neutral" rating on the stock.

Shares of WellPoint traded down 0.82% during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $61.68. WellPoint has a 52 week low of $52.26 and a 52 week high of $81.92. The stock's 50-day moving average is $64.33 and its 200-day moving average is $71.2. The company has a market cap of $22.246 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.24.

WellPoint, Inc. last announced its quarterly results on Wednesday, July 27th. The company reported $1.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the previous quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $1.80 EPS by $0.03. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that WellPoint will post $1.17 EPS next quarter.

WellPoint, Inc. (WellPoint) is a health benefits company serving 33.7 million medical members, as of December 31, 2009. The Company is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), an association of independent health benefit plans. It serves its members as the Blue Cross licensee for California and as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS), licensee for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington), and Wisconsin. In a majority of these service areas, it does business as Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield or Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield. WellPoint is licensed to conduct insurance operations in all 50 states through its subsidiaries. On December 1, 2009, the Company sold its prescription benefits management subsidiaries to Express Scripts, Inc.

Individual Health Insurance Nevada | Health Insurance Quotes

PricewaterhouseCoopers and Medco Health Solutions released two new views of cost trends in health care during the past week, building on the release of the Milliman Medical Index.   PwC Health Research Institute’s “Behind the numbers: Medical cost trends for 2012,” examines the medical cost trends for employers in 2012.  This new report found “Medical cost trend is expected to increase from 8 percent in 2011 to 8.5 percent in 2012.”  And two main drivers identified by PwC are provider consolidation and cost-shifting to the private sector.

Providing a view of prescription drug utilization and pricing trends, Medco’s Annual Drug Trend Report showed this week that while the overall growth of prescription drug prices is at an historic low (as a result of increased use of generic drugs), the cost of specialty treatments is still increasing at an alarming rate.  According to Medco’s report “Specialty drug trend was 17.4 percent in 2010, fueled by unit cost growth of 11.5 percent.”

Federal

There is no Federal report for this week.

States

ARIZONA: The Department of Insurance (DOI) held a public hearing on rate review as part of its Health and Human Services (HHS) grant activities. The DOI has retained Mercer Consulting to assist in performing a gap analysis to identify areas that need to be addressed in order to comply with the requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). During the hearing, it was noted that the state’s current statutory scheme does not authorize the DOI to review a health insurer’s medical loss ratio, potentially not allowing the state to meet the HHS requirement of having “an effective rate review process.”

The Director of Insurance and the Governor’s office also hosted their first workgroup on the implementation of an exchange. Despite the legislature’s refusal to pass an exchange bill, there is concern at the executive level about a lack of preparedness in the event the ACA is not repealed or found unconstitutional. This week’s topic was the qualified health plan certification, and participants focused on not adding requirements beyond the ACA minimum benefit requirements.

Nevada

Natural Health, Natural Medicine, The Complete Guide to Wellness and Self-Care for Optimum Health

Insurance for Dummies

The new life insurance investment advisor

Nevada, The Silver State