Axios

Omada Health has raised $50 million in a new funding round that was led by health insurer Cigna, the company said Wednesday. A handful of prior investors also participated, including Andreessen Horowitz and the venture capital arms of Humana, Kaiser Permanente and Providence Health & Services.

Why it matters: Omada has raised more than $125 million, attracting interest from some of the largest venture capital firms and health care companies. Those companies are betting Omada's technology — which provides online counseling and coaching to people who have chronic diseases, most notably diabetes — can lower health care costs.

Working in Omada's favor: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Medicare both gave a stamp of approval for Omada's diabetes prevention program. Cigna, Humana and Kaiser all have large Medicare plans.

President Trump has told Republican senators that the House's American Health Care Act is "mean" and wants the Senate version of the bill to be "more generous," per the AP.

It's not known exactly what portions of AHCA Trump was criticizing, but in a statement on health care outside of Air Force One in Milwaukee this afternoon, he promised that the Senate would "come up with a solution — and a really good one" to repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continued to dodge questions on the timeline for — and even the existence of — the Senate's bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act at the GOP's weekly press conference this afternoon.

• When the bill will be passed: "Well, you know, I'm not going to answer that with specificity. Our goal is to move forward quickly. The status quo is unsustainable. Something has to be done. Something has to be done soon."
• When the public can see the bill: "We'll let you see the bill when we finally release it."
• The bill's existence: "Look, we've been dealing with this issue for 7 years. It's not a new thing. We've spent a lot of time on it…Nobody's hiding the ball here, you're free to ask anyone anything."

Centene, a publicly traded health insurer that mostly covers the Medicaid population, will beef up its participation in the Affordable Care Act's individual exchanges — just as other insurers such as Aetna are retreating.

Centene said Tuesday it will enter Kansas, Missouri and Nevada and sell more ACA plans in six existing states. Centene covers 1.2 million ACA exchange customers, 90% of whom receive financial assistance through the law's subsidies.

Between the lines: Centene has been profitable on the exchanges and sees opportunity where other insurers see red ink. But it's worth noting why Centene has been profitable: It relies on extremely narrow networks of doctors and hospitals and high deductibles, but low premiums that attract healthier, price-sensitive buyers.