Obamacare is bringing boom times for health care business

Is Obamacare a government takeover of health care? To the contrary, it is one of the best friends private health care business ever had.

A recent report from consulting firm Mark Farrah Associates shows the size of the opportunity the law has created for the health insurance industry.

The market for individual policies, the kind you buy directly from an insurance company rather than through an employer, has exploded. These are the policies that are sold on the Obamacare exchanges.

Between the third quarter of 2014, just before the exchanges opened for business, and the fourth quarter of 2014, the number of people with individual policies jumped by 5.3 million. That's an increase of 44%. Currently, 17.6 million people have them.

The market for individual coverage grew in every state except New Jersey and Massachusetts. And figures for the current Obamacare open enrollment period indicate that the market will grow even more in 2015.

Among the biggest corporate winners were WellPoint, Health Care Service Corporation, Aetna, United Health, and Humana, which each gained more than one million new customers. Other companies seeing enrollment increases were Kaiser, Blue Shield of California, Health Net, and many Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans.

The report did note a drop of 3.1 million in the number of people receiving employer-sponsored health coverage for a decline of about 2%. That's significant, but it is a trend that has been going on for several years and last year's drop was not enough to offset the growth in individual coverage.

The business boom also reached companies that administer coverage under Medicaid, which has so far been expanded under Obamacare in about half the states. The number of Medicaid beneficiaries covered by private plans grew by 8.1 million from the third quarter of 2013 to the third quarter of 2014 - an increase of almost 29%. That market now includes 36.5 million people. It will grow again in 2015 as more states accept the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.

When the government reforms health care, it almost always means more business for the private sector, not less.

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