Everything Is Coming Up Roses for UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH) Stock

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UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE:UNH), a Minnesota-headquartered health insurer recently released its fiscal year 2016 numbers. And they were impressive.

Everything Is Coming Up Roses For UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH) Stock

Given the fact that the industry has been racking up huge losses trying to sort out how to make money from Obamacare, no one was really expecting a company like UNH to increase revenues 17.6% year over year. Earnings per share were up 25%, as were non-GAAP EPS.

That certainly doesn’t sound like a company that’s struggling to find a way through the current healthcare mess. The stock is up over 40% in the past 12 months, so it doesn’t look like UNH is falling victim to confused system.

While UNH lost 135,000 people in individual plans (mostly Obamacare plans) in Q4, it finished the year up 160,000 individuals. Its corporate plans saw an increase for the year of 205,000.

And under a Republican controlled Congress, things should become even better for UNH. However, there will be a transition for UnitedHealth Group if the new version of Obamacare is significantly different from what has been built over the past several years.

But that isn’t a big issue, since all companies in the sector will have to deal with that equally.

Long term, growth is built in on a number of levels. And the biggest of those is the massive numbers of baby boomers who are going to be retiring over the next decade.

Researchers have even dubbed the upcoming transition the ‘2030 problem’ because that is when most of the 75 million baby boomers will be between the ages of 66 and 84. That breaks down to about 3 million boomers entering retirement age every year for the next two decades.

This is an entire new industry that has not existed before and means those insurers that can best adapt and maximize revenue from this megatrend, the better they will do.

And UNH should do just fine.

It is a major player in Medicaid and Medicare, so if more weight is put on that system as Congress renovates Obamacare, UNH is there. It has integrated business to help individuals, businesses, governments as well the healthcare providers themselves in everything from billing to prescriptions to quality of care.

And now, it’s strengthening its outpatient (aka, ambulatory care) services. Last week UNH announced its purchase of Surgical Care Affiliates Inc (NASDAQ:SCAI) for $2.3 billion. SCAI has more than 200 outpatient surgical centers in 35 states and does nearly 1 million surgeries a year.

This will be another area of strong growth for the next two decades or more. And UNH is becoming a major player in the game.

Louis Navellier is a renowned growth investor. He is the editor of five investing newsletters: Blue Chip Growth, Emerging Growth, Ultimate Growth, Family Trust and Platinum Growth. His most popular service, Blue Chip Growth, has a track record of beating the market 3:1 over the last 14 years. He uses a combination of quantitative and fundamental analysis to identify market-beating stocks. Mr. Navellier has made his proven formula accessible to investors via his free, online stock rating tool, PortfolioGrader.com. Louis Navellier may hold some of the aforementioned securities in one or more of his newsletters.

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Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2017/01/unitedhealth-group-inc-unh-stock-roses/.

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