Centene's single biggest problem is it's leadership...or lack there of. They need to stop worrying about getting the next DEI accolade and do the job. Honestly I don't think they know how and it is time to clean house starting at the very top.
Michael Neidorff is rolling in his grave seeing what his replacement has done to this once thriving company. While he wasn't perfect, this group at the top shouldn't be running a car wash much less a fortune 100 company.
It is time to clean 50% of the directors and above. 100% of the top 10 in charge need to go too. Take 25% of that money saved and use it for the people who actually work. The rest would make up the savings needed to make the company viable again.
The old saying...too many chiefs and not enough Indians is sooooo very true within Centene. Yes, that isn't a politically correct saying. But it fits and Centene needs to STOP worrying about the next DEI trophy and do their damn job being fiscally responsible for the taxpayers money paying for medical benefits!!!
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@c8 sure am! I guarantee OP, and the person who started the other thread I mentioned, is a man.
@bx are you assuming gender?
@OP Mr. “78% of employees are women men can’t succeed” here is trying a different approach to not get his threads deleted.
@ae I don't think it needs to be a this or that argument, rather a this and that argument. You make a lot of great points, and I agree with them, but I don't think your argument invalidates the post.
I honestly couldn't tell you who's DEI around here. You guys are all avatars and initials to me on teams. If we're still implementing that strategy in our hiring, it's a bad plan to overlook a better talent based on a lesser one being a part of a faction that your DEI quota is short on. I believe all hiring should be based on merit, and leads to a better workforce. DEI should be more of a tie breaker, not a determining factor, if you're going to implement it at all.
@ae are there really 60k+ employees left? 🤷♂️
How many shadow layoffs were there?
I’m the farthest thing from a Trump supporter…it’s funny how every headwind is somebody else’s fault, but every SG&A improvement gets credited to leadership. Apparently accountability is also being optimized under Mission Simplify.
Centene isn’t fighting for survival. It’s fighting for margins. Investors celebrate the 7.4% SG&A ratio. But remember, employees become part of the numerator so what’s your guess on what the target numerator is to achieve max margins and profitability?
40% losses in ACA by end of year? Whose fault is that? Try as you can, it’s not a winning strategy to try to lobby yourself into profitability.
https://www.beckerspayer.com/payer/aca/centene-expects-40-aca-membership-decline-by-end-of-year/
@OP This "too many chiefs" narrative sounds great on paper, but it completely falls apart the second you look at Centene’s actual SEC filings and financial reality.
Blaming DEI awards for macroeconomic healthcare shifts is an emotional distraction and lazy. Major competitors (UnitedHealth, Elevance, Humana) holds the same 100% DEI and HRC scores. The real battle is navigating state Medicaid rate renegotiations and managing soaring medical utilization costs, which leadership is actively stabilizing right now.
Firing 50% of the top leaders and redistributing 25% of that cash across Centene’s 60K+ employees gives everyone a one-time check of about $200. That doesn’t fix anyone's salary, and it doesn't run a Fortune 100 company.
Here is the actual math on our financials:
Performance-linked pay: 92% of CEO Sarah London's compensation is tied directly to stock awards and performance metrics. When the company took an on-paper hit last year, her realized compensation dropped by over a million dollars.
The real cash drain: Our financial tightening isn't because of "DEI trophies." It's entirely due to the Medicaid unwinding that hit every single major insurer nationwide. When 25 million healthy people got dropped from state rolls, insurers were left with a much sicker pool of patients.
Where the money goes: ) Centene's Health Benefits Ratio (HBR) spiked to 94.3% late last year. That means nearly 95 cents of every single taxpayer dollar brought in went directly to paying for doctor visits, hospital bills, and specialty dr-gs—not corporate diversity seminars.
The company is viable: Despite a massive paper loss from a one-time goodwill impairment charge, revenue grew 19.4% to $194.7B, operating cash flow doubled to $5.1B, and corporate debt was just slashed by $1B in Q1 2026. Management also successfully lowered the SG&A corporate overhead ratio down to 7.4%.
@a6 if you are going to blame a president you need to go back to the implementation of the marketplace. Everyone loves to blame Trump. While he isn't always correct, the mess started way before he was president and there were 8 years in between his terms where things got worse. Honestly I see it more like the clean up of the mess is painful and needs to be done. And you are blaming them for trying to fix things.
The blame here lies on the management of the company. Not Trump...not Biden...not even Obama. The rules of the game were made and Michael Neidorff played his cards well. This new regime should fold their cards and let others sit at the table and try to clean up the mess
I think your comment is at best misguided. While I agree with some of what you said, this has nothing to do with DEI Hires. I do believe that she is not a good CEO, but lets make sure of the facts. The subsidies for ACA Expired and were not continued/extended. Both Medi-Cal and Medicare are also being gutted because of (wait for it) Trumps "Big Beautiful Bill" the fallout from that is we lost over 2 MILLION members that were on all 3 of these plans. Trust me when I say if I don't do the VSP and stay only to get laid off in Aug/Sept after a lengthy tenure at HN, the one person I will truly blame for this will be Trump.
I couldn’t have said it better!!! You are 1000% correct!!! This place is so top heavy it’s ridiculous. And the greed is disgraceful.