Oscar Health Insurance lost $25.8 million in the first quarter of this year, based on its financial documents filed in California, New York and Texas on Tuesday. That was an improvement over the $48.5 million loss from the same period last year.
Our thought bubble: Oscar was able to slow the financial bleeding after exiting several Affordable Care Act individual markets last year and decreasing its membership to 90,000. But Oscar is still hemorrhaging a lot of money — more than most people expected from a startup that attracts a younger and potentially healthier member base, and a company that has promised to change how health insurance works through its technology.
More numbers to chew on: Oscar, an investor-backed startup that uses a narrow network of doctors, now has lost more than $350 million since 2015. The insurer also continues to struggle with high administrative costs, ranging from 25% to 56% of revenue.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Bloomberg's Kevin Cirilli Tuesday morning that a border adjustment tax "probably wouldn't pass the senate," but said Congress is trying to reach an agreement that will serve as a starting point. "We haven't reached that agreement yet, but we will at some point."
Part of the GOP case for repealing the Affordable Care Act is that it has made insurance more expensive or even unaffordable for many people.
"In some cases, insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses have become families' most significant expenses," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters last week.
Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world's top scientific-instrument maker, said Monday it would buy Dutch drug ingredients maker Patheon for $7.2 billion, in an effort to expand its drug manufacturing capabilities, per Reuters. The deal will help Thermo Fisher keep a competitive edge in the industry as several drugmakers continue to cut costs and reduce drug testing times.
"Thermo Fisher already had a developing and strong position in clinical trial manufacturing and now expands that arm into drug manufacturing, which is likely to highlight its growing presence in the market of bioproduction and bioprocessing," Leerink analysts wrote in a client note.
Money matters: According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the company's latest purchase will add to "the $22 billion in acquisitions announced by Thermo Fisher over the past five years." Thermo Fisher's current market value is roughly $67 billion in New York, while Patheon is worth about $3.8 billion.
