Health insurer Humana will be raising its full-time employees' hourly pay to a $15 minimum thanks to the Republican-backed tax bill that President Trump signed into law late last year, the company's CEO announced during its quarterly earnings call Wednesday.
Bruce Broussard, the company's CEO, said half of the windfall from the tax law would go to customers, like investing in community programs, as well as to employees, both in the form of higher wages as well as through investing in an incentive-based compensation program. The other half of the return from the tax law will be returned to shareholders.
Humana's overall quarterly report came out better than expected. The company reported a profit of $184 million, or $1.29 per share. Earnings were $2.06 per share and revenue rose 2.4 percent, to $13.19 billion.
Humana is one of the largest providers of Medicare Advantage, which supplements traditional Medicare, a government-funded program for people who are disabled and adults 65 and older. About a third of people in the U.S. who are on Medicare have Medicare Advantage, and the provision is profitable to health insurers.
At Humana, individual memberships in Medicare Advantage plans rose about 1 percent, to 2.86 million.
The company cut long-term costs by creating an early retirement program and cut 1,300 positions. It also announced in December it would be buying a 40 percent state in Kindred Healthcare, which provides home care services.
“We continue to make strong progress in advancing our integrated care strategy, especially in deepening our clinical capabilities through long-term platform investments in the home and primary care,” Broussard said in a statement.
Humana does not sell plans in the Obamacare exchanges, following losses after participating in the earlier years of the law. A year ago, a federal judge blocked Humana's planned merger with Aetna over anticompetitive concerns following a lawsuit by the Department of Justice.
