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Income Taxes
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2015
Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]  
Income Taxes
INCOME TAXES
The effective income tax rate from operations was 60.7% and 139.3% for the three months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014, respectively, and 57.9% and 23.3% for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014, respectively. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014, our effective income tax rate was adversely impacted by the health insurer fee under the ACA, which is not deductible for federal income tax purposes and in many state jurisdictions. See Note 2, under the heading "Accounting for Certain Provisions of the ACA—Premium-based Fee on Health Insurers" for additional information regarding the health insurer fee.
For the three months ended June 30, 2014, we incurred a deduction for a loss on stock under Internal Revenue Code Section 165, which produced a tax benefit of $72.6 million, net of adjustments to our reserve for uncertain tax benefits. The impact of this significant tax benefit continued to have a lowering effect on our tax rate for the nine months ended September 30, 2014. Other items that caused our effective income tax rate to differ from the statutory federal tax rate of 35% for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014 included state income taxes, tax-exempt interest and non-deductible compensation.
During the three months ended September 30, 2015, we increased our reserve for uncertain tax positions by an additional $14.8 million due to research and development tax credits and adjustments to the 2014 stock loss deduction. During the three months ended September 30, 2014, we increased our reserve for uncertain tax positions by $7.3 million due to adjustments to our claims reserves. The deductibility of a portion of these claims reserve adjustments may be challenged by the taxing authorities.