“So within the contexting of balance, expect earnings to be a little bit higher marginally in 3Q than 4Q, because of that typical factor in there,”

In context

“nce pacing of EPS in the back half of the year between 3Q and 4Q. Could you talk about your expectations for MCR, specifically between the two quarters? And how are you thinking about the trend of care activity as we head into the back half of the year given what you're seeing with respect to demand, as well as some of the supply bottlenecks that took care being delivered maybe being removed? And do those factors differ significantly between Medicare and the commercial or Medicaid lines of business? Thank you. John Rex: Nate, good morning. Thanks for the question. Yes, in terms of the balance pacing, the way I describe that is -- and MCR and how that feeds in, we'd expect the MCR to be a little bit lower in the 3Q than we saw in the 2Q, some of that seasonality, as you would fully expect. So within the contexting of balance, expect earnings to be a little bit higher marginally in 3Q than 4Q, because of that typical factor in there, and thinking of an MCR somewhere in the zone of between, kind of, what we saw in the 1Q and 2Q just by seasonality factor. Important in that is we expect the, kind of, general pacing of care activity to remain consistent. That's what we've actually been seeing here. So since we've talked about this and as we've looked at the level of care activity across the company, these elements we talked about in terms of senior outpatient care are really remaining stable at the levels we talk to. And our expectation is it continues in that level. So as you look out to the second-half of this year, our expectation, it continues at those levels that we've been seeing with the -- I mentioned a few 100 basis points above our expectations in the senior business, that continues. The only underlying factor”