This is Jacob Emerson with the Becker's Payer Issues podcast. Here's your biweekly industry news briefing for July 31st. UnitedHealth Group's Change Healthcare has begun sending out letters to individuals affected by the February ransomware attack. On July 29th, Change began mailing written notices to individuals affected by the incident. Change is committed to notifying potentially impacted individuals as quickly as possible on a rolling basis given the volume and complexity of the data
involved. That's according to a statement from UnitedHealth. Change Healthcare also reported the ransomware attack to HHS's data breach portal. This comes after change said back in April that an initial sampling of the breach data showed the attack compromised, protected health information, and personally identifiable information from a large swath of the country. Wells Humana reported 6 $179,000,000 in profits in the Q2
of this year. The company published its 2nd quarter earnings report on July 31st and beat investor expectations. In the Q2 of last year, Humana posted $559,000,000 in profits. Total revenue in the Q2 was $29,500,000,000. That's up 10% year over year. Humana's medical loss ratio was 89% in the Q2. Total medical membership in the Q2 was 16,300,000 people. That's down 4.8% year over year. Medicare Advantage membership grew to nearly 6,200,000
people. The company raised its individual Medicare Advantage membership growth expectations by 75,000, predicting to add around 225,000 more members this year. Well, Centene says it will exit a handful of state Medicare Advantage markets in 2025. On July 26th call with investors, its CEO, Sarah London, said the exits are designed to
align with the company's long term strategy. She said, we think the team has done a really good job in terms of thought we designing bids consistent with our long term strategy even in a challenging rate year. We're being thoughtful about how to streamline that book and further alignment with our Medicaid footprint because that's where the puck is going. Centene is focused on MA plans for dually eligible beneficiaries.
Other payers have also said they plan to exit MA markets in 2025 as they face rising medical costs and a tougher reimbursement environment, including Humana and CVS Health. Centene also named Nathan Landsbaum as its next CEO of Markets and Medicaid. He is the CEO of Sunshine Health, which is Centene's Medicaid subsidiary in Florida. And the company's current CEO of Markets and Medicaid, Dave Thomas, will leave Centene in December.
Well, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont says premium hikes are needed this year to stay financially solvent. In May, the company asked state regulators to approve the highest ever premium increases for individual and small group plans in Vermont exchange market. In July, the company said it was placed in the, quote, unprecedented in situation of amending its request to raise premiums even higher.
The company says its claim costs have increased significantly since May, draining reserves and leaving the company in a fragile financial state. Its CEO, Don George, wrote in a letter to Becker's, these increases are troubling for all of us and have positioned us between 2 extraordinary pressures, the sky right skyrocketing increase in health care costs and the difficulty of providing affordable health insurance plans for our
members. He said, unfortunately, the high demand for medical services, increasing prices at hospitals, exponential growth in drug prices, and new state laws are all forcing higher premiums to pay for the cost of care for Vermonters. Vermont's commissioner of insurance wrote that BCBS needs to contribute more to its reserve funds to stay financially solvent. Insurers must maintain adequate reserve funds to pay for unexpectedly high medical claims or other unforeseen events.
BCBS has proposed upping its reserve contribution to 7%, up from 3 in its original proposal. Those contributions are funded by premiums. If approved, premiums for individual plans would increase 20%, and group market premiums would increase 23% in 2025. The market accounts for 18% of the company's membership, but 50% of its reserve needs. Other markets will have proportional increases to cover the increased reserved funds.
And finally, 7 insurers, at least 7 insurers, are exiting Medicare Advantage Markets in 2025, a number that is likely to grow in the fall. There's just under 4,000 individual individual MA plans available nationwide this year, and the average number of plans available to beneficiaries is 43, which is unchanged from last year. In terms of insurers that will be exiting markets next year, Blue Cross of Arizona is not going to be offering MA prescription drug plans in the states next
year. We mentioned that Centene, Aetna, and Humana will all be exiting an unspecified number of markets next year as they focus more on profitability. Blue Cross of Kansas City is exiting the Medicare Advantage market entirely. ClearSpring Health will withdraw its Medicare Advantage prescription drug plans from South Carolina and Virginia.
And finally, at the very start of this year, Cigna Group reached a deal to sell its Medicare business to Health Care Service Corporation, which owns 5 Blue Cross Plans. A deal was worth just over $3,000,000,000. It's expected to close in the Q1 of 2025, and that includes almost 600,000 Medicare Advantage members. If you like the latest health insurance industry news delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to the Becker's payer issues e newsletter on our website at beckerspayer.com.