Long Beach, Calif.-based managed-care insurer Molina Health is booming, both in revenue and net income, and the main reason is the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid.
“We believe that government-sponsored initiatives, including the Affordable Care Act, will continue to provide us with significant opportunities for membership growth in our existing markets and in new programs in the future,” Molina said Thursday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Molina almost exclusively focuses on Medicaid. It sells health plans in 11 states. Six —California, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio and Washington—have expanded Medicaid under the ACA to low-income people making below 138 percent of the federal poverty line.

Molina’s managed-care skills are  particularly important with its large Medicaid population since states want that population to be in rigorous managed-care systems. It’s tougher to do that with the Medicare population because the elderly have much more political clout than do the poor.