Mark Keim: Correct.
Kevin Fischbeck: All right. And then I just want to go back one more time to the redeterminations because it’s interesting because on the one hand, it sounds like you thought about redeterminations as a potential MLR pressure in your Medicaid MLR guidance, which is different, I think, than how you’ve talked about it in the past, but then throughout the call, you’ve kind of dismissed it as a potential pressure to MLR. So just trying to understand a little bit finer like are you saying you’ve put it in, but you think it’s set most 10 basis points or something like that, something kind of immaterial or how exactly are you thinking about and what exactly are you including in this year’s guidance? And then I guess to build on that, if it is a pressure this year, would you expect that pressure to be higher or lower next year? Higher because more members are being determined or lower because states have more time to adjust rates? Thanks.
Joe Zubretsky: Kevin, I’ll give it to Mark. We are not and haven’t parsed all the specific trend factors that go into an MCR forecast for the Medicaid business, but we have been outperforming even the low end of our range, a range which produces best-in-class industry margins and we just think it’s not prudent to continue to forecast that we’ll continue to outperform the outperforming that range. So we call it a reversion to the mean. We’re forecasting an 88.5% for the Medicaid business, which is right in the middle of the range, citing medical cost pressures due to any of the items like flu, COVID, RSV and then, of course, any pressure that might be experienced with an acuity shift knowing that a significant acuity shift will probably be absorbed by retroactive rate increases. So I’m not going to parse it, but that’s why we were somewhat conservative in forecasting the middle of our long-term Medicaid range rather than continuing to forecast that we outperform it.
Mark Keim: That’s exactly right. So we finished last year at an 88% for the year. Our guidance anticipates an 88.5%, and we don’t attribute any specific basis points to a driver. But in general, reversion to the mean flu, RSV, number of different things we could think about in there. Don’t forget, we also have some new stores coming along, Iowa, the acquisition of My Choice Wisconsin. In general, just a little bit of conservatism, reversion to the mean, not attributing any basis points specifically to redetermination. But look, we’ve all had the conversation enough. We’re acknowledging that, that’s something that’s potentially in there. in our reversion to the mean. Now you also mentioned maybe what happens next year. So to the extent any of this starts to manifest it will largely be back-end loaded in the year, just given the way redetermination is going to play out.
I think that gives all of us a lot of time to anticipate it but just as much work with our state partners to make sure that rates in the concept of actuarial soundness anticipate the same thing.
Kevin Fischbeck: All right. Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from George Hill with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
George Hill: Hi, guys. Is it working better this time around?
Operator: Yes. Thank you, sir.
Joseph Zubretsky: Yes, we hear you.
