My health insurance premiums went up 100% from 2012 to 2013. I'm glad the insurance companies are paying less for health care they cover...that's good for their profits.
and how much increase for same coverage under ACA?
JUST BECAUSE SISSY SAYS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO...BUT HE THINKS IT DOES!!!!! JUST BECAUSE MC1 SAYS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO!!!!!
Yes, that's correct. Jason Furman. THE NEW HEAD OF THE WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS Report:
I would think that Cissy would be FOR a reduction in Health Care Costs due to ObamaCare, but his politics outweigh his pocket!
Just one more Obama Success!
Health-Care Stocks Lead S&P 500 for First Time in 15 Year By Lu Wang March 22, 2013 4:34 PM EDT
Health-Care Stocks Leading S&P 500 for First Time in 15 Years Health-care (S5HLTH) stocks are leading gains in U.S. equities this year for the first time since 1998 as companies cut costs and investors speculate an expansion of insurance programs will benefit hospitals and insurers. Drugmakers, health insurers and biotechnology companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index have returned 12 percent in 2013, including reinvested dividends, the most among the 10 main groups. That’s the first time in 15 years that the industry has led over the first 79 days into a year. Analysts project profits will rebound from this year’s zero growth in 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “There is certainly a re-acceleration in growth prospects,” Timothy Hoyle, director of research and fund manager at Radnor, Pennsylvania-based Haverford Investments, said in a telephone interview last week. His firm oversees $6 billion. “Most of the big drug companies have experienced patent cliffs and are now repositioning themselves for growth.” Health-care stocks are rallying as estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show President Barack Obama’s health law may extend insurance over the next decade to about 27 million people who are currently uninsured. Companies in the industry such as Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the world’s biggest drugmaker, have cut jobs and sold off businesses to boost profits and fund share buybacks. U.S. regulators approved 39 new drugs last year, the most since 2000, data from Bloomberg Industries show.
The last time health-care companies led the S&P 500 in the first three months of the year, in 1998, the industry surged 42 percent in the third-biggest gain on record, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The U.S. equity benchmark posted an annual gain of 27 percent.
The gauge of drugmakers and biotechnology shares added 0.7 percent today, leaving it 0.5 percent higher for the week. That marked the 11th weekly gain this year. All but five of the 53 stocks in the S&P 500 (SPX) Health Care Index have risen in 2013. Celgene Corp., a cancer-drug developer, and Tenet Healthcare Corp., a hospital chain, led the advance, surging 44 percent and 40 percent, respectively. That compares with a 9.2 percent advance in the S&P 500. Profits from health-care companies in the S&P 500 will climb 8.4 percent next year, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Growth stalled at 0.9 percent in 2012. Pfizer has rallied 31 percent in the past year after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its arthritis and blood thinner drugs and the company divested its infant nutrition and animal health businesses.
The New York-based company has reduced operating expenses by 13 percent since 2010 while cutting 30,500 jobs in the past nine years. Pfizer bought back $8.2 billion of its own stock in 2012 and announced a $10 billion repurchase program in November.
“The industry is slimming down,” Dan Popowics, a portfolio manager for Fifth Third Asset Management in Cincinnati, said in a March 13 phone interview. His firm oversees $8.1 billion. “You have a lot of large companies doing shareholder-friendly activities, and all are benefiting from new product flows.” Health-care shares are also catching up after trailing during the last bull market, Popowics said. The industry is among the three groups in the S&P 500 that didn’t make new highs during the 2002-2007 rally. Abbott Laboratories split off AbbVie Inc. (ABBV), a drugmaker based largely around a rheumatoid arthritis injection, in January, leaving the rest of the company to focus on medical devices, diagnostics, nutrition and generic drugs. Since the split, Abbott has gained 7.5 percent and AbbVie is up 14 percent.
Amgen Inc. (AMGN), the world’s largest biotechnology company, raised its quarterly dividend by 31 percent to 47 cents a share in December and said it would repurchase $2 billion in shares. Shares of the Thousand Oaks, California-based company are up 12 percent this year, extending a 34 percent rally in 2012. Gains are poised to continue as Obama is seeking to deliver affordable health care to the nation’s 48.6 million uninsured, according to John Stoltzfus, chief market strategist at Oppenheimer & Co. The Affordable Care Act, which passed Congress in 2010, is the biggest change to the U.S. health-care system since Medicare and Medicaid began providing taxpayer-funded services for the poor, elderly and disabled in 1965. Under the law, insurance plans will have to compete for the new customers on state-by- state exchanges where consumers can comparison-shop.
The Bloomberg Industries hospitals stock index has rallied 86 percent over the past three years, including a 34 percent increase in 2013. HCA Holdings Inc., the largest for-profit U.S. hospital chain, has climbed 30 percent this year. “It’s a recognition by investors that even though the government intervention will likely increase, or won’t decrease much, what many of these companies will lose on a per-unit basis, they will likely make up in volume,” Stoltzfus said by phone on March 13.
Tenet Chief Executive Officer Trevor Fetter said last month that he expects a boost to the company’s hospital business as more states join to expand Medicaid to the uninsured. New Jersey and Florida are among the 25 states planning to expand Medicaid, a health program for low-income Americans, according to a tally by Advisory Board Co., a research and consulting company based in Washington.
“In the long run the economic benefits of the states will be such that most states will eventually expand Medicaid and we’ll see significant growth not just in 2014 but beyond in this space,” Richard Zoretic, who heads the Medicaid business at WellPoint Inc., the second-biggest U.S. health insurer, said in a Jan. 23 conference call with analysts. Federal spending cuts and efforts to rein in medical costs threaten sales for drugmakers and health insurers, according to Mike Binger, who helps oversee about $300 million as senior portfolio manager at Gradient Investments LLC in Shoreview, Minnesota. “It’s everyone’s mandate, whether you’re in the public sector or in the private sector, to try and control health-care costs,” Binger said in a phone interview on March 14. “How that’s done over time is probably the biggest risk.” U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on March 12 unveiled a proposal in which $700 billion would be taken out of Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income Americans. He also called for an overhaul to Medicare by giving people now under age 55 fixed sums. The program is currently open-ended.
Health-care shares have more than doubled since March 2009 and in July became the third industry in the S&P 500 to hit an all-time high. The S&P 500 is about 1 percent below its 2007 record. The rally has boosted valuations for health-care shares to the highest in five years, narrowing its discount relative to the S&P 500. The industry trades at 15.1 times earnings, compared with a multiple of 15.4 for the U.S. equity benchmark, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The last time that drugmakers and health insurers traded at a premium to the S&P 500 was between 1994 and 2008, when the valuation gap averaged 17 percent. The group had a discount as wide as 47 percent in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Expanded insurance coverage will bolster sales and help drive continued multiple expansions, according to Dan Teed, who helps oversee about $125 million as president of Wedgewood Investors Inc. in Erie, Pennsylvania. “This is the moment of the sun for the industry,” Teed said in a telephone interview on March 19. “We’re looking at increasing the base of the entire industry, not just a few companies.”
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net
ObamaCare Enriches Only The Health Insurance Giants and Their Shareholders
So far in 2013 the value of the S& P health insurance index has gained 43%. Thats more than double the gains made in the broad stock market index, the S & P 500. The shares of CIGNA are up 63%, Wellpoint 47% and United Healthcare 28%. And if you go back to the early 2010 passage of ObamaCare, you will find that Obama’s sellout of the public interest has allowed the public companies the ability to raise their premiums, especially on small business, dramatically multiply their profits and send the value of their common stocks up by 200%-300%.
Some benefits of the law are already in effect. For example, insurers can no longer cancel your plan if you get sick, and they can’t set a lifetime limit on how much they will pay for your medical bills. Another provision establishes a rapid appeal process, which allows consumers to appeal insurance company decisions and receive a response in 72 hours for urgent medical situations.
The CommonWealth Fund Insurance Tracking Survey estimates that 15 million Americans under age 26 were able to stay on their parents’ plan due to Obamacare’s dependent coverage provision. In addition, an estimated 8.5 million Americans currently insured received rebates from their insurance companies due to a provision of the law that requires insurers to spend a certain percentage of premium revenue on health care costs.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Insurers’ Stocks, Unhurt by the Dawn of the Health Care Law The Affordable Care Act has been controversial — so much so that Republican objections to it were a principal cause of the recent partial shutdown of the federal government.
Standard & Poor's 500 (for all 12 months ended Friday) Yet from the financial perspective of the health care industry, Obamacare, as the law is often known, doesn’t seem much of a hindrance.
In fact, it may even turn out to be positive.
Consider the situation of health insurance providers.
Because they face new regulations intended to broaden coverage and limit profit-taking, some analysts have been concerned that profits will suffer. But in the run-up to the Affordable Care Act, stock market prices have told a different story.
Over the last 12 months, shares of the top five publicly traded health insurance companies — Aetna, WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Cigna — have increased by an average of 32 percent, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has risen by just 24 percent.
Strong profits in the current year, as growth slowed in overall health care costs, is one probable explanation for the outperformance by the group.
Another is the growing expectation that payments from new customers required to buy insurance under the Affordable Care Act will offset costs from new regulations.
Health insurance companies themselves haven’t exactly sounded an alarm about the Affordable Care Act’s arrival.
Mark T. Bertolini, the Aetna chief executive, said recently: “We continue to believe that public exchanges can represent a longer-term upside opportunity.”
And most health insurers are forecasting earnings growth after the health care law is fully in effect.
David Cordani, Cigna’s chief executive, said his company’s average annual earnings per share would grow 10 to 13 percent over the next three to five years.
If such projections are correct, someday we may look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.
It isn't paying off, it isn't lowering costs, it is so bad the president flat out lied about what it was to get re-elected, and then illegally made changes to "the law of the land" such as delaying the employer mandate. That was never going to happen, the employer mandate. That is what is known as 'fraud', and 'breaking the law'. People who were complacent before are waking up. Anything goes, because it is for "a good cause"? One of the worst aspects of this is that people have become convinced that they "need" insurance to go to the doctor, and that if costs go up because people now have a "plan" (that's another euphemism, because it is good to "plan", right?) that is the fault of the insurance company. If people believe they have gotten something of value, because now they can pay to go to the doctor every month whether they go or not, and if they do need health care, they may still face deductibles and out-of-pocket costs they can't afford, I can't help that kind of ignorance. No, health care "costs" have not gone down, any fool knows that, I don't care what some partisan liar slaps on a chart to attempt to keep pulling the wool over the eyes of a gullible public.
~ “About 500,000 Americans are poised to gain health coverage starting January 1st, many of them for the first time in their lives."
~ “Five years after the Bush Economic Meltdown US businesses have created 7.8 million new jobs in the past 44 months. Another 200,000 Americans went back to work last month.”
~ "Since Obama took office, he's cut our deficits by more than half."
Not bad for a Black, Socialist, Muslim from Kenya!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
~ “About 500,000 Americans are poised to gain health coverage starting January 1st, many of them for the first time in their lives."
~ “Five years after the Bush Economic Meltdown US businesses have created 7.8 million new jobs in the past 44 months. Another 200,000 Americans went back to work last month.”
~ "Since Obama took office, he's cut our deficits by more than half."
Not bad for a Black, Socialist, Muslim from Kenya!
Says the 9/11 Truther
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
~ “About 500,000 Americans are poised to gain health coverage starting January 1st, many of them for the first time in their lives."
"About 500,000 Americans will be subsidized by me and tens of millions of other American's, by canceling our current policies and forcing us to purchase more expensive policies, with higher deductibles, that include coverage we don't want and will never use, so 500k can hold a corporate Health Insurance policy".
Wall Street thanks you for driving up their profits.
Wall Street thanks you for driving up their profits.
Yea it really is too bad that the GOP axed the single payer option, that would have kept private insurance companies competitive. Hopefully, single payer will eventually be added to ObamaCare.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
How many people are subject to rate shock in the individual insurance market thanks to Obamacare? That's a surprisingly hard figure to get a handle on. But here's a rough cut:
There are about 15 million people who currently get individual coverage. Of that, only about 5 million stay in the individual market for more than a year. The rest have individual coverage for only a few months and are minimally impacted by policy cancellations.
At a guess, maybe a third of these long-term buyers will end up with higher rates for comparable policies once they've shopped the exchange and applied their subsidies. So that's a grand total of perhaps 1-2 million people. It's a lot. At the same time, it's less than 1 percent of the population of the country. I don't want to minimize the pain that higher rates are causing this 1 percent, but at the same time, we shouldn't be overreacting either. Given the kludgy nature of our current health care system and the realities of American politics, it would be hard to design any kind of large-scale health care reform that did much better.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
You know what? My post about the 49% versus the rest succinctly explained what "all the fuss" is about, if someone reads that, and dismisses it without thinking, there is no arguing with that individual, save your breath. These partisan propaganda pieces are designed to fool those who wish to be fooled into not believing what is going on in front of our eyes. BTW, why, oh, why, has the black Kenyan magic man not done a thing for his most vulnerable supporters? Go walk around Hamilton Hill, Arbor Hill, theWest End neighborhood, Detroit, Camden, Newark, parts of Chicago, ask the residents if they are happy now that they can get "coverage". Again "coverage is NOT health care. Find some evidence that this population is doing better in any way, now that this wonderful job creator is in office. Ask how many have logged on to "shop" for insurance on the exchange. The president literally flew over their heads to cozy up to his pal Jeffrey. I don't wonder that the stock market is flying high. The people of Hamilton Hill are the expendables. I understand some people saying that the economy is getting better, but a president or a governor or a mayor ignoring how people in our cities are really living, that is shameful. Don't tell me how great Obama is doing, I can see what is right in front of me.
You said he was responsible for the attack. If you didn't think so, you wouldn't have said it the way you did.
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
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