Health Insurers Under Attack Again

Health insurers’ stock prices are likely to fall Wednesday. Most of them rose smartly Tuesday on news that President Obama would accept a health bill without a public option health plan.

But not only did the left get to Obama and force him to reassert his demands for a public option health plan, or Government HMO, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) that the health bill must include the Government HMO.

Both Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, look silly and weak. They’ve been rolled by their hard left base once again. And it might and should kill their health insurance reform bill, which really isn’t a reform bill but an inflationary health care spending bill that would cost trillions over the next 5, 10 and 20 years.

If the bill dies, which is a good probability, health insurers will be fine for the near term, but until the bill’s fate is determined for sure, health insurers’ stocks will be under attack.

Daily charts for health insurers are here.

Disclosure: I don’t own any of these stocks.

Comments

[Arthur Hau:]

Has Obama learned the laws of supply and demand?

If you want things to be cheap, you either reduce the demand or you increase the supply.

Bring some form of public health care to compete with the private health care system.

Slash the monopoly power of the American Medical Association.

Increase the number of trained medical doctors every year.

Subsidize the R&D of small pharmaceutical companies to increase the number of new drugs and to increase the production of old drugs.

Create professional liability funds to protect medical doctors from liability lawsuits. At the same time, put a cap to each of their treatments, e.g., as a percentage of the average per capita income earned in each state.

BTW, reduce the quality of health care in the U.S. is one possible solution!

Jul 08 10:31 AM

[376602:]

Hide the ultimate Government HMO solution in the Bill.
Do not resusitate (DNR) emergency hospital admissions if the patients are over age 65, and put everyone over age 72 on Hospice.

Jul 08 12:54 PM