WellPoint, a onetime critic of health law, may yet profit

In the midst of the sweeping transformation taking place in health insurance, the company that served as an illustration of why an overhaul was necessary could end up benefiting most from the new federal health care law. Just a few years ago, the health insurer WellPoint outraged its customers — and regulators — by proposing an increase of nearly 40 percent in some of its annual premiums. Now, WellPoint has captured a large portion of the government money being spent on Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor, and can gamble on the new insurance marketplace because of protections offered by the federal government in the early days of the law's introduction.