US government will pay the program Medicare Advantage With more money next year, than he originally proposed in January. This is an important victory for insurance companies, which have been targeted by checks by Washington.

Insurance shares immediately rose, marking some of their largest intra -day earnings by 2020. Her share Unitedhealth Group Inc. increased up to 11%, its share CVS Health Corp. Humana inc. jumped up to 15% when purchases were opened in New York.

The Medicare Advantage program will see payments increase on average by 5.06%, more than twice as much as the government proposed in January. The increase means that the government will pay Medicare’s private insurers at least $ 25 billion more next year. This is a huge leap compared to the percentages that were first proposed in the last days of the Biden government.

The move was “well above expectations,” her analysts wrote Keybanc Capital Markets, Matthew Gillmor and Zach Haggertyexplaining that for 2026 it will give Medicare Advantage the flexibility to increase profit margins even when cost increases.

Health Insurance Companies were pressing for higher rates, as they argued that the proposed compensation rates do not go hand in hand with the increase in healthcare costs.

“While fraud, waste and abuse are definitely the focus of the new administration, we believe that the final interest rate alert is a positive surprise,” said BTIG analyst, David Larsen.

In the last two years, the US has made stricter payments to Medicare Advantage and tried to limit some tactics used by insurers to increase their revenue. Some insurance companies reduced the benefits and left in response.

More than half of the patients Medicare, or more than 30 million people, are registered with private medicare advantage programs and the government paid about $ 494 billion last year. Guardians and regulators have accused companies of inflating payments by saying that patients are more ill than in reality. The Medicare Payment Committee estimates that the program will cost $ 84 billion more this year than it would cost to cover patients in traditional Medicare.