WellPoint thrives as public plan takes a dive

[IndianaGreen]

Anti single payer Senator Evan Bayh's wife sits on the board of WellPoint. The Bayhs have made millions out of their investments in the health insurance industry and Big Pharma. Evan Bayh voted with Ben Nelson on Nelson's version of the Stupak amendment. Evan Bayh is running for reelection in 2010 because he feels he is entitled to the votes from the same people he has put the screws on.

WellPoint thrives as public plan takes a dive

Analysts declare insurer a winner in the debate over health-care reform

By Daniel Lee
Posted: December 11, 2009

As the health-care reform debate boiled over this week, so did WellPoint's stock price.

Shares of the Indianapolis-based health insurance giant surged to a 52-week high Thursday as the prospects for a new government-run "public option" health plan faded amid intense Senate debate. WellPoint rivals Cigna and UnitedHealth Group also hit 52-week highs.

It's a sign, more than one observer suggested, of victory for private health insurers, which strenuously fought the public option.

"Obviously, the market thinks WellPoint's a winner," said Daniel Evans, chief executive of Clarian Health, an Indianapolis-based hospital system. "If the public option is no longer on the table, then WellPoint is a winner because it's not threatened by a government competitor."

And Evans wasn't alone.

Appearing on CNBC, Leerink Swann analyst John Sullivan declared WellPoint one of the victors of health reform.

Although all sorts of health-care companies -- such as Indianapolis drug maker Eli Lilly and Co. and Warsaw orthopedics implant maker Zimmer Holdings -- would be affected by reform, insurers' interests are uniquely entangled in the debate. Many of the proposed reforms go to the heart of how the U.S. insurance market is structured.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009912110378