Health insurance stocks slide after UnitedHealth warns more surgeries will drive up medical costs

Health insurer stocks dropped on Wednesday after UnitedHealth Group warned of higher medical costs as older Americans start to catch up on surgeries they delayed during the Covid pandemic. 

Shares of UnitedHealth, the largest U.S. healthcare provider by market value, closed around 6% lower. Medicare-focused insurer Humana declined 11%. 

Elevance Health closed roughly 7% lower, and CVS Health, which owns the insurer Aetna, slid nearly 8%. 

Insurance companies have benefitted in recent years from a delay in non-urgent procedures due to hospital staffing shortages and the pandemic, which saw hospitals inundated with Covid patients and widely seen as too risky to enter for elective procedures.

But on Tuesday, UnitedHealth executives indicated that trend may be reversing. 

The company has recorded “strong outpatient care activity” throughout April, May and the early part of June, CFO John Rex said at a Goldman Sachs healthcare conference.

Most of the uptick in care has come from Medicare enrollees who are getting heart procedures and hip and knee replacements at outpatient clinics, according to Rex. 

UnitedHealth CEO Timothy Noel said that older adults covered under Medicare are getting “more comfortable accessing services for things that they might have pushed off a bit.” 

Rex said the amount of premium revenue spent on care for the second quarter may be at the high end or “moderately above” expectations due to the increase in procedures. 

Shares of medical device manufacturers Medtronic and Stryker jumped 2.5% and 4%, respectively, after UnitedHealth’s remarks.

Shares of hospital operators HCA Healthcare and Tenet Healthcare also edged up higher.