Humana (NYSE:HUM) is one of the three largest health insurance companies operating in the United States. The company raised its profit forecast for 2019 after posting a second-quarters earning beat back in late July. It said that it had seen the highest membership growth in its government-backed Medicare Advantage plans for individuals in the last decade.
This pushed Humana stock up 12% over the past three months. However, shares have still dropped 1.9% in 2019 as of close on September 3. One significant risk still hovers over Humana and the health insurance industry at large as we look ahead to 2020.
That risk, as many investors have probably guessed, is the 2020 Presidential Election. Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are polling closely behind front-runner Joe Biden as of early September, have both vowed to uproot the private health insurance industry. Biden, on the other hand, is running on a platform of restructuring the current health-care model.
President Trump is reporting some of the worst approval ratings and head-to-head general election polls of an incumbent in decades.
Prognosticators seriously underestimated his chances in 2016, but now the opposite effect may be taking root. Going by current polling, the Democratic nominee will have a serious advantage heading into the 2020 election.
However, a restructure of the health-care model that will involve the uprooting of the private insurance industry is extremely unlikely. This will hold true no matter who is President-elect on November 4, 2020.
