We've been here before. Multiple times.
From my prospective, we've never truly addressed the issues in the company that causes it to bleed. Every time they run into money problems, they do layoffs to keep the stock shiny. The underlying issues are procedural and technical, but instead of fixing it while they have the staff to do so, they fire the staff first and expect the remaining staff to try to continue to work inside the flawed system.
It's a downward spiral that really doesn't see a solution at the end, and if the intention isn't to course correct, what's the endgame? I know they have a ton of directors and up in meetings to figure stuff out, but this wasn't fixed in the last six years, I don't know what six weeks will do.
My thought is that the massive employee liquidation is a precursor to a sale. Centene is a mismanaged company, and might be looking to sell and be done. At this point dumping the books of business to a viable management company may be the best option on the table. If not all of the business, perhaps slivers.
If that's the case, the buyer is already going to have most of the staff required to run what they buy. I'm not sure where that leaves us. If they only sell parts and I manage to survive the apocalypse, how long before I'm looking at the same situation again. That VSP isn't looking so bad.