We Like WellPoint Despite Underwriting Setback [View article]
Wellpoint has already been getting undermined in its key market and is increasingly getting the lower quality health care contracts. Even Kaiser is doing better. Until they improve management they will continue to remain discounted.
This really has nothing to do with health care reform and a lot to do with a bureaucratic company that can not adapt to the changing times. How long can they rely on the Blue Cross Blue Shield name before they sully it? Have you ever tried filing a claim with them? Expect to take all day and tons of paperwork. It's an utter joke.
How Health Insurers Are Defusing The ObamaCare Bomb [View article]
Doctors already pretty much work for health care insurers. The idea of cost per patient is a good one in that health care companies should have incentives to keep people well, not profit off of their ill health.
Even so, socializing healthcare is not a good policy, but I do support regulating them (like forcing insurers to pay out 90% of their intake in premiums and barring them from owning doctors or facilities they can divert customers to to profit off of) and keep administration costs under 5%. I certainly won't be recommended to head the insurance industry any day with such thoughts nor will anyone who isn't supporting the health insurer lobbyist gravy train.
Be it Obamacare or care before Obama, our health care system is expensive and broken with too much money going to paperwork, insurers, lobbyists, and attorneys, and sucking money from taxpayers. This is the main reason politics and government should not be a major framer of any industry. And is probably the main reason health care costs continue to soar in spite of the recession.
21 Most Undervalued Stocks With Buyback Programs [View article]
In general, I commend companies that use free cash flow to buy back shares rather than squandering it or investing in non-core businesses. Furthermore, most companies doing this are not trying to manipulate their stock as many cynics imply, but are generating free cash flow, doing fine and see real value investing in their own companies when undervalued.
To many execs fight stable income and moderate growth by burning cash to try to stimulate or sustain unsustainable growth with marginalizing reward. Executives that value stability and rational expectations for their industry get high marks in my book.
TECD like SNX also beat estimates and earnings expectations should be raised. Arrow Electronics and other electronics distributors are all doing very well. I have recommended and own TECD.
Institutional Buying and Selling of S&P 500 Stocks by Sector [View article]
I wouldn't necessarily call those stocks institutional investors lightened up as losers. In some cases they made the wrong choice and will have to buy them back if the market runs up or the stock outperforms. Institutional investors mean big money but not necessarily smart.
Krugman Smells Victory for Healthcare [View article]
Intrade is a more useful tool for finding out odds than popular sentiment. Perhaps that's because they put money where their mouth is and there are a few market makers to exclude the patently ridiculous. I tend to look at it regarding elections more than anything else.
With the public option virtually off the table mostly all we are getting is a re-arranging of the beneficiaries of our already bizzaro quasi-governmental system with some additional government funding. It is a disappointment for liberals and conservatives alike as well as all those who want better healthcare and more affordability. It stands as a testament to the power of big insurance interests and lobbyist over doctors, the public, and rationality more than anything else.
Why Health Insurance Stocks Are Poor Bets [View article]
By the way, plenty of medical companies are rallying on the reform bill. I even bought ISRG. Clearly many people don't believe this bill will lead to worse coverage or that higher quality treatment methods will now be shunned. Count me as one of those people.
Why Health Insurance Stocks Are Poor Bets [View article]
Well can I add a correction to the title. This should be why health insurers who had near monopolies or duopolies in huge swaths of America and used them to line their pockets are bad bets in 2010. The medical profession is liable to be much healthier after this bill. Unfortunately, Congress and the Senate were unable to get all the lobbyists out of the mix so there is still a lot more to be corrected in our terribly flawed, inefficient, and bureaucratic medical system. But at least this reform is a start at reform.
I wish they had done something similar with ther banking and financial markets. Oh well. Merry Christmas to all the uninsured or people who have been denied propetr treatment that will benefit from this bill.
How the Senate Bill Would Change Healthcare [View article]
This is a small, somewhat flawed but neccesary step forwards. In the end a majority of doctors support medical reform. When they sign up they signed up to treat patients and care for people not figure out how to save HMO's money denying care and spend a lifetime figuring out the legalities of medical treatment.
The government is already in healthcare. What we need is regulation, fairness, and efficiency.
If I believed this would collapse the advancement ion healthcare I would not have bought ISRG this week. If the market thought that, then the pharmas and some medicals would not have risen. The naysayers are not speakijng for the medical community or even for medical practices save the medical insurance companies who will face fair and equitable competition in their essential monopoly or duopoly areas of service.
The US has a lot to catch up for in the medical world. It has been sluipping behind every other developed nation by medical metrics for over a decade.
This is not because America doesn't have the best health care procedures and medicine. It's because of the dispensers of medical care, the medical insurance companies still haven't seen fit to support preventative medical care or any care at all unless there is no way out of it. And that's only after you and you doctor fill a warehouse of paperwork to get it. And then another warehouse to bill it to your insurer. Talk about a paradigm of inefficiency. They seem to have learned buraucracy from the old Soviet Union.
Murphy's Law of Economics and Health Care [View article]
If anything begs for deflation it's medical costs and education. The issue is less making the public pay for what it gets and more keeping those in the medical profession, especially insurers, from charging any ridiculous price they can for medical services.
When going to the hospital bring your own asprin, because if you take it there it will run you $100-200. Medical insurers mistake medical need with any price goes. We call those that do such things as opportunists and it's a crime in most cases.
The Hypocrisy and High Stakes of Healthcare Reform [View article]
The health insurers have pretty much dropped out of the support column. Perhaps that's why the general public is becoming increasingly favorable towards a public option. If we just got rid of the heath insurers there would be planty of cookies for all of us since they are the biggest cookie monsters out there.
I'd rather suffer an overpaid doctor than an overpaid insurer, an overpaid administrator, an overpaid claims ajuster, and an overpaid lawyer each using my own money to find some way to prevent me from getting the coverage I already paid for. Do we need some sort of health reform? Most definately!
How can people call it a surprise when everyone expected after FASB accounting rule changes and PPIP Enronesque pricing systems are expected to go into place that banks would simply stop marking down their losses. In fact, even if they reported huge losses people would say the worst was over, simply because they know losses can once again be hidden.
In reality, banks coninue to make ridiculous spreads and hoard cash because the reality of their situation remains essentially the same. Once again we sacrifice the long term for the short term and a pack of lies and are asked to cheer.
We Like WellPoint Despite Underwriting Setback [View article]
This really has nothing to do with health care reform and a lot to do with a bureaucratic company that can not adapt to the changing times. How long can they rely on the Blue Cross Blue Shield name before they sully it? Have you ever tried filing a claim with them? Expect to take all day and tons of paperwork. It's an utter joke.
How Health Insurers Are Defusing The ObamaCare Bomb [View article]
Even so, socializing healthcare is not a good policy, but I do support regulating them (like forcing insurers to pay out 90% of their intake in premiums and barring them from owning doctors or facilities they can divert customers to to profit off of) and keep administration costs under 5%. I certainly won't be recommended to head the insurance industry any day with such thoughts nor will anyone who isn't supporting the health insurer lobbyist gravy train.
Be it Obamacare or care before Obama, our health care system is expensive and broken with too much money going to paperwork, insurers, lobbyists, and attorneys, and sucking money from taxpayers. This is the main reason politics and government should not be a major framer of any industry. And is probably the main reason health care costs continue to soar in spite of the recession.
21 Most Undervalued Stocks With Buyback Programs [View article]
To many execs fight stable income and moderate growth by burning cash to try to stimulate or sustain unsustainable growth with marginalizing reward. Executives that value stability and rational expectations for their industry get high marks in my book.
Momentum Ideas: 26 Undervalued Stocks Raising Earnings Guidance [View article]
Institutional Buying and Selling of S&P 500 Stocks by Sector [View article]
Krugman Smells Victory for Healthcare [View article]
The Fruits of Healthcare Reform [View article]
Obama and Pelosi should hang their head in shame.
Why Health Insurance Stocks Are Poor Bets [View article]
Why Health Insurance Stocks Are Poor Bets [View article]
I wish they had done something similar with ther banking and financial markets. Oh well. Merry Christmas to all the uninsured or people who have been denied propetr treatment that will benefit from this bill.
How the Senate Bill Would Change Healthcare [View article]
The government is already in healthcare. What we need is regulation, fairness, and efficiency.
If I believed this would collapse the advancement ion healthcare I would not have bought ISRG this week. If the market thought that, then the pharmas and some medicals would not have risen. The naysayers are not speakijng for the medical community or even for medical practices save the medical insurance companies who will face fair and equitable competition in their essential monopoly or duopoly areas of service.
The US has a lot to catch up for in the medical world. It has been sluipping behind every other developed nation by medical metrics for over a decade.
This is not because America doesn't have the best health care procedures and medicine. It's because of the dispensers of medical care, the medical insurance companies still haven't seen fit to support preventative medical care or any care at all unless there is no way out of it. And that's only after you and you doctor fill a warehouse of paperwork to get it. And then another warehouse to bill it to your insurer. Talk about a paradigm of inefficiency. They seem to have learned buraucracy from the old Soviet Union.
Murphy's Law of Economics and Health Care [View article]
When going to the hospital bring your own asprin, because if you take it there it will run you $100-200. Medical insurers mistake medical need with any price goes. We call those that do such things as opportunists and it's a crime in most cases.
The Hypocrisy and High Stakes of Healthcare Reform [View article]
I'd rather suffer an overpaid doctor than an overpaid insurer, an overpaid administrator, an overpaid claims ajuster, and an overpaid lawyer each using my own money to find some way to prevent me from getting the coverage I already paid for. Do we need some sort of health reform? Most definately!
Closing Update for Monday, July 27: Scratching It Out [View article]
Cramer's Stop Trading! The Most Egregious Industry (6/23/09) [View article]
Markets Close Up, Not Sure Why [View article]
In reality, banks coninue to make ridiculous spreads and hoard cash because the reality of their situation remains essentially the same. Once again we sacrifice the long term for the short term and a pack of lies and are asked to cheer.