Pisani: Analysts' About-Face on Health Bill?
By: Bob Pisani | CNBC "On-Air Stocks" Editor
Wall Street has done a bit of an about-face on health care reform in the past few weeks — while the Street for the most part is strongly opposed to the bill, analysts are increasingly pointing out potential positives in addition to negatives.
You can see this in the title of some of this morning's analyst reports. Cowen's title is: "Reconciliation Bill: Not So Bad"
Leerink Swann says "Time To Buy Managed Care Stocks (If You Haven't Already)."
The tenor of much of the commentary is that: 1) the bill increases access to health insurance, thereby increasing the number of insured, and 2) if passed, it will not impact the industry until 2014, so there are four years to look at fundamentals.
That's true, but there are still plenty of negatives. Here's a greatly simplified cheat sheet composite of what the Street is saying now.
HMOs
Big Positive: larger number of insured
Negative: lower payments per member
Medicare Advantage stocks
Negative: facing funding cuts
Observation: universally viewed as the losers, but stocks not seeing a big selloff
Names: Humana , HealthSpring , Universal American
Medicaid
Positives: larger number of members; House bill includes Medicaid physician rate increases to Medicare levels in 2013 and 2014.
Names: Amerigroup , Molina , WellCare
Hospitals
Positive: fewer uninsured
Negatives: Medicare cuts
Names: Tenet , Community Health , Universal Health
_____________________________
Take Our Poll:
_____________________________
More Market Insights:
- Cramer: Five 'Obama-Proof' Dividend Plays
- Health Bill GOOD for These Health Stocks: Analysts
- Forget Health Care Bill — Markets Are 'Sell-Sell' Anyway
_____________________________
CNBC Slideshows:
_____________________________
CNBC Data Pages:
_____________________________
_____________________________
Questions? Comments? tradertalk@cnbc.com
