Obamacare enrolment begins, but no major gain for Wipro, Cognizant

IT services companies, which were betting on the enrolment for Obamacare to revive faster growth in healthcare services business in the US, may be disappointed as the Trump administration has cut budgets and time for enrolment of the landmark healthcare programme.

Software service providers such as Wipro, Cognizant, Accenture and BPO companies earn a good portion of their revenues by providing services to health insurance companies and the marketplaces for buying health insurance in the US. These companies were awaiting clarity on the proposed change in legislation of Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare and some of them felt the pinch as clients delayed in making decisions for new projects.

While Wipro, which counts close to 15 per cent of its revenues from healthcare services, claimed to have lost $120 million on a run-rate basis in the past 12 months; another IT major Accenture saw business being impacted due to delay in decision making.

As the Open Enrollment has begun for 2018 on November 1, the US administration has shortened the duration to 45 days, unlike earlier years, and not given enough publicity resulting in confusion among citizens.

Global analysts largely say "nothing much has changed" despite efforts by the current administration to replace the healthcare legislation and this could mean no major change in business for IT services companies, both Indian and global, at least this year.
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