The United States barely increased next year's payouts for health insurance companies, causing the stock prices of health insurance companies to plummet after hours.

On Monday, the US government announced that it has proposed to only increase the average Medicare payments to insurance companies by 0.09% next year. As a result, the stock prices of Medicare insurance companies have dropped by over 10%. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the US stated that this proposal would result in an additional payment of over $700 million for Medicare Advantage programs by 2027. Following the announcement, stocks of Medicare insurance companies like UnitedHealth, CVS, and Humana fell by nearly 12% in after-hours trading, while Elevance Health and Molina Healthcare saw a drop of nearly 5%.