Dive Brief:
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Oscar Health expects to expand into Arizona and at least three other Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange marketplaces in 2019, Bloomberg reported.
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The payer reported a profit in the first quarter of this year and significantly improved the company’s medical loss ratio.
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According to the company’s regulatory filings obtained by Bloomberg, Oscar had a net gain of about $9 million combined in New York, Texas, Tennessee and Ohio, but lost about $3.6 million in California and about $1 million in New Jersey.
Dive Insight:
The news of Oscar Health making a profit and looking to expand comes two months out from when the company said profitability was “around the corner” after it raised $165 million from investors. The millions in investments came from such big names as Google parent Alphabet's investment arm Capital G and life sciences arm Verily.
Launched in 2012 by Josh Kushner (brother of President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner) and Mario Schlosser, the New York-based payer initially focused on the ACA exchanges. After years of losses, including a $205 million loss in 2016, Oscar has turned around the finances. The company said it achieved an “underwriting profit” in 2017 and is in the black for the first quarter of 2018.
The payer has been growing in both the ACA marketplace and in other insurance areas over the past year. Oscar expanded to Cleveland, Austin and Nashville and returned to New Jersey this year. The company also expanded to other markets, including small business and Medicare Advantage, and partnered with Cleveland Clinic and Humana to offer co-branded health plans.
Payers in general have been doing well this year. Insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare, Aetna and Cigna all posted positive first-quarter earnings. What makes Oscar’s news noteworthy is that the company was losing money not too long ago and it’s found success in the ACA marketplace, a market that many large payers left over the past two years.