Posted on 04/17/2019 12:49:51 PM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
U.S. stocks fell to a one-week low as the sell-off in health-care providers extended amid concern about policy changes and the latest batch of corporate earnings did little to boost confidence in the economy. Treasuries edged higher.
The S&P 500 Index slipped below 2,900 as health providers from UnitedHealth to Anthem and Humana. Merck fell the most in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The Nasdaq 100 Index touched an all-time high after Qualcomm Inc.’s two-day surge topped 40 percent, but gave back gains as Netflix Inc. turned lower and biotech shares in the index slumped.
The rout in health-care shares overshadowed the latest batch of earnings reports, which painted a mixed picture on the state of the economy. Morgan Stanley rose, but a rout in Bank NY Mellon weighed on financial shares lower. PepsiCo. Inc. jumped to an all-time high after posting solid results, while CSX Corp. and Kansas City Southern lifted transportation stocks. IBM Corp. slumped as sales fell.
Health providers and hospital operators have come under pressure as national politicians debate the merits of expanding Medicare to all Americans, a move that has the power to upend earnings models for large parts of the system.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
The DOW is in positive territory for the day and for the week.
I just put 10K into an S&P 500 index fund. Hope it’s not too soon.
Fake news
Everything I track, including the DOW is up.
But the health insurers will be laughing all the way to the bank.. just like they did when the exemptocrats passed obamacare. Medicare is “administered” by an insurer.. so are most medicaid programs i have seen.
Health care is sucking every dollar out of the economy that it can.
“I guess Bernie is scaring the crap out of healthcare companies.”
I just took a look at the bills Bernie is behind.
Bernie is a Bolshevik brand nightmare.
There is no text or summary of his Medicare for All bill on Congress.gov, yet.
My point is that the current situation with health care costs is (to borrow one of the most annoying words on the planet) unsustainable. These companies are all invested in the status quo. Sooner or later demands to end the status quo will become irresistible, and these companies are starting to figure that out.
Whether what comes next is Bernie Socialism, a return to pay-as-you-go, or something completely different, has yet to be determined.
Our health care systems are actually very much like the regional trusts of the traditional National Health Service.
Our health care system is very much NHS transition ready.
Our systems such as Partners and Inova might receive annual global budgets.
Drugs could be bought nationally on an “all the doctors” prescribe basis, with patient co-pays to cover the manufacturing costs of chemical drugs.
somehow i think we’ll survive. ;-)
I’m not so sure I would make that bet.
What you say is true; as far as administering the programs. The insurers have no risk. Yeah, I saw my Mom’s Medicare statements; Procedure: $1272. Reimbursement: $78.82.
But two factors:
1: when ACA was being built, the health insurers were figured in as “partners” and they could probably see (if not directly lobby, if not actually write the damn bill themselves) that they could preserve their revs; because the sponsors of the bill were naive goofball idiots who suddenly thought themselves capable of authoring a massive, massive program overflowing with government slop. The Democrats who “produced” the bill were not, as usual, interested in the actual results; they were interested in painting a picture of themselves providing this glorious handout that would cover everyone and save every insured $2500 a year. Wow! And so the Dems luxuriated in this synthetic image of being seen as the saviors of mankind and you and I would joyously re-elect them. (the ONLY thing they are interested in) Compare this with the known pattern of Democratism: Offer the giant freebie without regard to how it might be paid for, with the idea that you’ll re-elect them before anyone can figure out the infeasibility, to say nothing of the truly negative effects of their legislation. The government will of course bail them out should the costs exceed the estimates (they always do) but the net effect is that the taxpayer funds the Dem re-election campaigns; a generation becomes dependent upon the bloat, and after some time the law becomes irrevocable. Rinse & repeat.
As it turned out, the insurers actually figured out ways they could make even more (or at least as much——the so-called “risk corridors”) and their stocks have been on a tear since the inception of ACA and started upwards IMMEDIATELY after ACA,
1: The form of investment you or I may have in the insuring companies (HCA, UNH, CAH, etc; is in the form of STOCKS and if the perception is that these companies are going to get gored profit wise, then their stocks will fall and potentially give up a lot of the gains they achieved over the course of the rollout of ACA.
Is it different this time? You say “no”. I say “watch out”.
...The days of unlimited fleecing are coming to an end
Hope and Pray that this is true
Drug cost should be flat across the world
Stop this process of selective pricing, with the USA footing the bills
DOW down .01% this afternoon. But then again, market panics are always mice that can “roar” if they upset enough scaredy cats.
Just wondering...
How many of the world’s 1% have fled their socialist medicine to have medical care in the USA?
It’s a three point “rout” on the Dow.
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