Thread regarding Cigna layoffs

@aw I felt like DC took the heat of the layoffs that were BEs call

@1q9 And Evanko ran it.

IFP was a $hit show.

More than anything its market factors and regulatory changes.

Medicare is a great example of what was coming for Cigna's IFP and Medicaid divisions:
The Boomers are using their insurance more now that most are in thier late 60's and 70's. So cost go up, profits go down. Subsidies from the feds don't go as far and are not increasing enough to cover the cost increases. The tail end of the boomers turning 65 is at hand in 4 years. The rate of new enrollments is not at the growth rate it was a few years ago. New low utilizers are not enough to cover the increased overall utilization rates. We are at the back-end of the bubble. Cigna jumped ship, sold the Medicare business before it got real bad, - smart move.

IFP/Medicare - Its the Obamacare exchange now. Not much difference between them except which plans are available and how much you have to pay per month and out of pocket. Healthcare cost rise - Government subsidies don't match rate of cost increase, enrollments not growing enough, some states are just not worth it to do business in.
The math just doesn't work at the present scale of the business. It's not worth the investment increases needed to compete at the level Cigna would need to just to maintain some sort of respectable margin if any.

Changes in regulations around Pharmacy Benefit Manager rebates which are a huge part of Cigna Evernorth's bottom line are going to really hit corporate profitablity. Cigna is shrinking.

@aw Sounds like a fail upward kind of guy. Wish I could do that but I'd get fired.

@aw MC was a failure because of the people in the weeds. I never say this. I usually blame bad leaders. I can’t speak for IFP but every single Medicare project I worked on was a disaster because of the inability got the PMs to understand the work, communicate with each other, or take accountability. The amount of money wasted on Medicare is insane and I only saw a small part of it.

So, B.E. ran both the IFP and a Medicare businesses, which have been total financial failures. They were so bad that one has already been sold and the other will likely be sold this year. And he was rewarded by being promoted to President & COO?? Not to mention he was the CFO during the time period our expenses really got out of control.

I have nothing against him personally and he seems like a decent enough guy. But this type of talent decision may explain why we’re in the situation we’re in.

Weird, just found out someone started a new role in the IFP area. Would be weird to go there and get impacted.

7/18/2026