Farmers feel the big freeze
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Health insurance companies wake up today with a headache. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. Stock in the health insurance company Humana is down 15% in pre-market trading right now. Elevance, which does Blue Cross Blue Shield, down more than 7%. The staffer reports the government plans to give them just a small raise for privatized Medicare Advantage plans. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Genzer explains.
Medicare pays big insurers like UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health to manage Medicare Advantage plans for seniors. Yesterday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers Medicare, projected a rate increase for these insurers of slightly less than 1%. The companies were expecting closer to 4 or 5%. The government is trying to crack down on companies that read patients' medical charts and conclude they have additional illnesses. Insurers are paid more when patients are sicker. Now, Medicare wants to change that, only paying for new illnesses diagnosed during a visit to a doctor's office. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says it's trying to limit growing unnecessary costs from, quote, coding practices that do not lead to better quality coverage.
It'll finalize new rates by this April. The trade group America's Health Insurance Plan says the proposed low rate could result in benefit cuts and higher costs for seniors. I'm Nancy Marshall-Genzer for Marketplace.
Given this, UnitedHealth stock is down 12 percent pre-market now, this despite reporting quarterly profits today that beat expectations. We don't expect U.S. central bankers to lower interest rates this week. The Fed starts meeting today, and its briefing on inflation, jobs, and growth comes just after lunch Eastern time tomorrow. Dow futures are down 0.2%, but S&P futures are up 0.4%. NASDAQ futures are up 0.6% now. 5.3 million people have not made a student loan payment in a year, part of the legacy of pandemic-era policies to ease loan repayment. The plan had been for the government to resume grabbing paychecks and tax refunds for those in default, but we continue to cover the Trump administration's recent about-face on this.
The wage and tax garnishments have been suspended. But for how long? Betsy Mayotte is founder and president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors. She spoke with our podcast, Make Me Smart.
I want to emphasize that I do think this is a temporary reprieve. I would not be surprised if they started doing it again either after July 1st when a lot of the H.R. 1 provisions come into play or after midterms.
Changes to the student loan system were promised in the big tax and spending law from last summer and are evolving. For more on what's to come for student loans, check out Marketplace's Make Me Smart. Marketplace.org has the audio now.
It's a big country with many growing zones. And even here in the dead of winter, there's planting and harvesting in what are supposed to be warmer climes. Yet we have this record cold. Marketplace's Elizabeth Troval now has more on farmers and the big freeze.
In Mississippi, rain quickly turned into ice in many parts of the state, freezing power lines and trees, delivering a blow to the state's timber industry, says Keith Coble with Mississippi State University.
What tends to happen with pine trees is when they get bent over with ice, they may break off or they may pull out of the ground and it leads to a tree that's probably not seligible.
And you can't just replace a 12-year-old tree.
You've lost 12 years worth of growth and all you can do is clean it up and start over.
In neighboring Louisiana, Mike Della Berto with Louisiana State University says even though farmers just wrapped up sugarcane harvest.
They're very much concerned really by the prolonged days that we're going to have temperatures really below freezing or even below the 20s.
Because you can harvest sugarcane several times, but not if the root freezes beyond repair.
Really, the underground portion of that root is really critical to next year's crop establishment.
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