cigna's ceo tells reuters setting up the exchanges won't likely be a top- or bottom-line driver. meals on wheels is facing a crisis. the government-funded program, which sends meals and company to about 25 million americans, will encounter a budget drop. sequester cuts have reduced meals' budget by about $38 million. the white house estimates 4 million fewer meals will be delivered. the organization itself estimates about 19 million will be affected. it's not just college tuition that is going up. financial aid is at record levels as well. the average amount of financial aid offered by private colleges hit a record high of 45% last fall. additionally, 65% of schools increased discount rates. the wall street journal reports that after years of persistent tuition hikes, private colleges fear pricing out of the market. it was only a matter of time - the cyber-currency known as the bitcoin now has federal regulators mulling over whether it should be regulated in some way. our cover story takes a look at how the bit became the "it" currency. the commodity futures trading commission is

cigna's historically not played in the smaller individual market.ink what you're seeing broadly as we step into 2014 is a couple points. one, the health care law puts in place a base benefit level. in many cases that base benefit level is higher than the benefits that the under 50 life employers are buying today. there's an acceleration in cost but there's more coverage that take place. two, medical costs are going up on a year over year basis because of the costs of hospitals and physicians. >> everyone just announced they had such low utilization and yet the premiums continue to go up. >> andrew, two different points there. take the biggest driver relative to small employers as a higher level of benefit coverage on the essential benefits. for cigna, put that in context, we had a 6% medical cost trend year over year which was at the low industry range. for last year, 2012, we had 5% of increase, which was at the lowest end of the industry training. the good news is that flows directly to them in a positive way and helps to make a more affordable an

cigna and cardinal health.duals from aetna and cigna. joining us is grant, thanks srofp for talking to us. in a business built around charging people when they're sick, how do you make money for preventive care. >> it's a great question. thanks for having me. if we can find ways to engage people earlier, everybody can go with that. the employer might offer insurance. and all can win. our model is focused on getting the tools in the hands faster. take a piece of that so we're all aligned and incentives are quickly aligned. >> who pays you and how do you make money? >> our business model is really focused on really the stakeholders in health care. our primary business partners are the insurance companies. you mentioned cigna. and also employers and some provider groups. we have a subscription model where we will roll out to a business or employer. we get paid per member, per month. who are you threatening? >> ironically, i'm threatening in some cases the same people we're working with. if you think how healing ca

40% above which is the standard in this disease, if you look back at the same point in time when to cignars ago in the resistant, intolerant pop mewlation of patients, they are now 40% higher in terms of numbers of of new prescriptions. the launch is going very well, is very strong, ahead of expectations, and widely adopted across patients. cheryl: okay. do you think the stock's performance in the analysts' reactions should be better because of the black box warning? liver toxicity, is an issue, and concerns on blood clots. do you think those black box warning was fair? do you want to dispute that with the fda? do you think that's something the street misunderstood about the company and drug itself? >> i don't think today analysts are at all focused on that. physicians certainly are not. as we said this morning, there's really no discernible impact of the boxed warning on the adoption, and i think, you know, virtually all the analysts who came out today and followed up qirs quarter results has been extremely positive, most raising expectations for revenues this year, and anticipate a stro

harper and travel trust, you can follow along, showed a similar strength to cigna.ws take a look at your premium, it's going higher. travelers, the company never got bad investments. it's been able to raise rates, buy back stocks travellers has bought back 40% of the sales. we saw how the mortgage insurance turns. this has been a horrendous business. the models showed them the mortgage borrowers would never walk away. they turned out to be dead wrong. we saw two terrific quarters yesterday. my special favorite and genworth is him coing back. they are revved for to continue to roll off and new business comes in. the profits will explode. genworth reported profits. heaven forbid if they were to ipo its mortgage insurance. it's worth a business, which brings me to aig, which just reported a monster blowout after the close today. i thought hedge funds would be good, who cares? they delivered a buck 34 earnings. it was looking for 88 cents. a 46 cent beat. yes, a mortgage insurance business that just turned profitable like genworth. i rarely get people to buy those stock

by look any financial insurance sector i look at a better brand name like goldman and cigna.way from that name as an undervalued name. melissa: you don't. >> of course they are in this area of having a lot of difficulty with commodity prices going down. there are being heard by a slowing economy in china. of course, this conversion is going on from coal to gas. that is also becoming troublesome. financial strength is only a b plus plus 56 it is interesting. they are owned by a lot of hedge funds. sometimes when you look at that you wonder where the incremental by our come from. thanks you for joining us. preceded. a breakdown. >> thank you. >> thank you. melissa: up next, think there is no "money" in your name? how wrong you are. new study shows up having no longer first namcan cost you big time. supposedly costing you $7,200 per year. stay right where you are. find out why. you can never have too much "money." ♪ ♪ melissa: time now for a little fun with "spare change". today we are joined by you know who, imperial goddess. i added that myself. and our own adonis, adam shapir

even if you bought like an aetna plan or cigna plan and paid for it yourself.r/patient relationship? >> probably by rewriting that law. >>> thank you for speaking your mind. i hope you keep it up in the future. who in the current debate reflects your values and views the most effectively of everybody in politics? >> i certainly enjoyed what senator rubio had to say last night. and i'm sure there are many up and coming young people, bobby jindal. and we'll just have to keep looking and hoping that people are courageous and forward thinking. >> heather? >> does a message of personal responsibility sell politically anymore? we've seen president obama suggesting universal pre-kindergarten care. basically telling parents that it's not their responsibility to prepare their children for school, but rather the government's. i don't think your mother would have bought that message. she understood it was for you to do that. we seem to be expanding things that the government can do instead of individuals. could a politician stand up and say, sorry, we're not going to give

wendell potter, senior analyst with the center for public integrity, former head of public relations for cigna and author of "deadly spin," an insurance company speaks out on how corporate p.r. is killing healthcare and deceiving americans. what a pleasure to have you on "viewpoint" this evening. >> thank you. >> john: how have hospitals kept these incredible cost discrepancies secret from us all these years? >> healthcare providers and insurers have really spent a lot of time to make sure that their costs are kept secret. they call it proprietary information. and they've been able to get away with this for all of these years. just now the government through the centers for medicaid and medicare services has released what is really important information that we should have had all along. >> john: indeed. what role, sir does the private insurance play in driving up the insurance costs and how does that contribute to differences in price. $100,000 or $7,000 for identical treatments. >> what this shows is a complete failure of the unregulated healthcare marketplace both healthcare providers and b

and cigna, marriott, avis budget, cigna reported above estimates on the hmo business and raised theiryear forecast. the key driver, premiums are going up. marriott on the top and bottom line, raising their room rates. avis budget beat because they're raising their rental traveler rates. and i'm a homeowner, they raised my insurance 25%. some people somewhere are definitely getting price increases through and in some cases it's going through to the bottom line. ing opening at $19.25. >> this rent a car, i can't believe it, hertz is such a great stock. there a there's pricing in the rentals, really incredible. >> rick santelli from chicago. go ahead, rick. >> thanks. the group there nailed it. what the buzz is on the trading floor and on my phone is basically mario draghi talking about negative interest rates. just contrast the notion if you're going to leave your money resting at the ecb, we will penalize you in some way, we don't want it on the middle of the teeter-totter and want it to slide down to grease gears. our forgive pays for excess funds to be held, a bit of contrast there.

former cigna chief terry berman will be zale's new chairman. american eagle outfitters, the teen retailer, posted a drop in first quarter sales. expecting same-store sales this quarter to be flat. i spoke with bmo's john morris earlier. saying investors are willing to look ahead. spring will company and these companies will do better. and there's a sense that the c-suite at aeo is being prudently cautious. and lowe's also cut its full-year profit forecast, but the stock leans into the green today. morningstar's peter wallstrom pointing out that may comps are up 10%, so trends perhaps moving in the right direction here. stock up about 20% this year. remember, yesterday, rival home depot reported first quarter earnings that rose 18%. that stock now up some 29% this year. bill, back to you. >> josh, thanks very much. lowe's saying that all the rain in the springtime didn't help their sales. but home depot didn't seem to care about the weather. which company has the better tools to help build your portfolio? home depot or lowe's? let's talk about t

revenue beating the street's forecast for cigna. is cigna raised its revenue for the year. revenue numbers came in at $4.2 billion. i guess you've got to be facebooked to have huge revenue gain these days. 38% revenue increase and a lot of that had to do with mobile app sales. everybody is saying mobile, mobile, mobile. that is the key things to worry about and the promise for the future. >> it was really good. the first was mobile revenue which we just mentioned. now it's 30% of all advertising revenue that's came in. and we're looking for engagement to go. we remember very pleased with results especially on the top line. i wonder whether the company was awarded its valuation before somebody does something. i don't understand these things, i don't understand what instagram is. i don't see where there's a barrier to entry. will this grow into its valuation, ron? >> i think it will. just to be clear, i think we're going to need maybe a quarter, a few more quarterers of good results like we just saw for it to get back to writ was pre-ipo. advertising growth has reaccelerated

we'll get numbers from cigna, cme group,s take louder and kellogg. >>> and fist quarter results missed. up from 23% in the previously quarter. the company now has more than 1.11 billion monthly active users. and the number of people who log on solely with the mobile device has more than doubled to about 190 million. >> actually, i thought the 30% of their advertising revenue was a spectacular number. so i thought the earnings away very good. >> in that case, though, what do you make of the fact that they didn't manage to beat on earnings and as mobile increases, does it put pressure on their earnings power longer term? >> well, okay, so on the earnings front, if you look at what's going on there, the company is ramping their investment in innovation and to that extent the operating expenses are growing at a faster rate than their revenue. i'm not at all concern about what's going on there. as with others in the front, it's offset by weakness and core. i'm very encouraged by the mobile trends. >> anything negative you found on this report? >> no. as with other advertising differences, w

however, united health, etna and cigna plan to sit out the first year of this state-run, ma. >>> sometors are worried about a loophole of the affordable care act that could mean they won't get paid. when people buy subsidized insurance through covered california, they only have to pay for one month to start. then they get 60 days before they have to pay again. well, consumers canceled their insurance during those two months and doctors are worried about their bills getting paid and that could keep them from joining the exchanges. >> i'm very concerned that if the financial burdens hit doctors because doctors are on the hook for that payment from 30 to 90 days that they won't be able to. >> now, the federal government says they are working on ways to keep patients from keeping advantage of the loophole. >>> fewer americans are likely to use the long memorial day weekend coming up to get out of town. aaa says 34.8 million will go aleast 50 miles from home. that's down 1% from last year. nearly 90% of their year's travelers will go by car. the rest will use planes, bus, trains or even bo

you could have a cigna vegan portion of the syrian population that is eventually displaced -- you coulda significant portion of the syrian population that is eventually displace. host: florida, republicans line. , c-span.ello hello to your guest. . am a gulf war veteran i have interest in the area and pay attention to what goes on there. my question to your guest is, let's say compared to iraq, i believe that toppling the saddam regime was the right thing to do. it may have taken longer than most americans had asked for, but war is not clean and it is not pretty. my question on the syrian military capabilities is, for example, is, for some reason, israel have to step up their air war capabilities to go in and possibly take out some of the chemical stockpiles, they are going to affect those in the region and possibly others. does he believe that the air defense systems in syria will hold up to the israeli air power? i will take i answer off the air. thank you. guest: thank you. one of the problems you have would syria is any accurate assessment of the air defense capabilities, looking ev

ince november 2009 when assumed the position for special envoy, we have seen very cigna began changesthe death of kim jong-il, the rise of consolidation and power. notrtunately one thing has really change. that is the human rights so which ration -- situation in north career which has remained deplorable. of two things. first of all, we need to continue to hold the north korean leadership accountable for its deplorable human rights record. we need to call attention to these problems. second we need to break down the barriers to information and increase the exposure to the outside world if we're going to create the kind of positive change we like to see in terms of security and humanitarian challenges come a greater flow of information is key to that process. let me say a few words about calling attention to the human rights abuses. north korea's human rights problems are well documented. the state department produces annually the reports on human rights practices. the less reason was a couple of weeks ago by secretary carry. reall new to report extrajudicial killings, arbor tory deten