00:00Walk us through the guidance. They've eaten a raise obviously from CVS. How do they do it and what's to
00:04come?
00:06So CVS has been improving the operations in their Aetna insurance unit.
00:12They raised the guidance largely for two reasons.
00:17One was that they sort of had money that they had set aside for last year that was left over.
00:22They sort of set aside more than they needed. They put that into the increased guidance.
00:26That was most of it. They also are projecting more profitability than previously expected in their pharmacy.
00:34They've been making some changes in their pharmacy, getting changes to sort of how some of the drugs are getting
00:39paid for.
00:40And they also said on the earnings call today, they used to be losing money on GLP-1s.
00:46Now they're not losing any money anymore. We've seen that in rival Walgreens as well is profiting on GLP-1s.
00:51So there are some big changes we've seen there.
00:54We've got about a minute left here, but I know that Medicare Advantage is hugely important here to CVS.
00:58We've got a new set of payment rates for those plans coming into place in 2027.
01:02How is that likely to affect this company? How is it likely to affect CVS?
01:06Yeah, so CVS is saying that they do not think that these rates will keep up with the increased costs
01:13that they're anticipating coming into 2027.
01:17You know, that might mean that they might cut benefits for some of these plans.
01:21They are still targeting the 3 to 4 percent margins in that business over the next few years.
01:28So we're going to be sort of watching to see what changes they might make.
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