Wall Street's Verdict is in: Brown will win, Kill the Bill & protect Insurance Co. & Pharma profits

[jpak]

The Dow was up 101 points today. "Analysts" claimed investors expected Brown to win Ted Kennedy's senate seat, kill the HCR bill and protect Insurance Industry and Pharma profits...

- so they claimed on my local TV news...

Why would Teh Insurance Industry and Big Pharma profits *benefit* if the HCR bill was killed, if it was written by Teh Insurance Industry and Big Pharma - with the help of the Bad Obama and the Corporate Democrat Party - to INCREASE their profits and usher in the New Feudal Age?

Did someone tell us a fib about HCR?

Well did they?

:shrug:

[regnaD kciN]

1. If so, they're going to be disappointed...

...as I'm almost certain that the House will then simply approve the Senate bill as-is, send it to Obama's desk for his signature, and immediately introduce a second bill to remedy the problems with the first...which, because it will only deal with budgetary matters, will be passable via reconciliation. Sorry, guys! :P

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. The shitty bill INCREASES insurance industry and pharma profits.

Killing the bill (and starting over with REAL reform) would be the only thing that would threaten the criminal industries.

[regnaD kciN]

5. Killing the bill (and starting over) would result in NO health-care reform...

...or, at best, a worse bill than we have now, because we'd have to give up the store to Snowe to break a filibuster.

(And, if you chime in "just use reconcilation!" without realizing you need to pass the non-reconcilable elements in the current bill first, you prove nothing but your own ignorance of the legislative process.)

[jpak]

6. Teh Wall Street Banksters say NO - that's why they bought Ins. Co. and Big Pharma stocks today

They know that money talks and BS walks.

Someone has been "had"....

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. I'm loving the cognitive dissonance here.

From the people claiming the bill is a hand out to the insurance companies.

[Salmonslayer]

4. Didn't Insurance company stock values

go up the day HCR was passed in the senate? This would indicate the perception there are more profits for insurance companies. If HCR is approved.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. The whole stock market went up that day.

Insurance companies underperformed in comparison.

[theothersnippywshrub]

13. Two went up very slightly that day. The rest went down. They all went down in the following days.

And each of them was trading then at a single digit PE, both trailing and forward. That is pretty cheap for companies with double digit returns on capital and half again that for returns on equity, not to mention PEG ratios near or under 1.

[jpak]

11. Yup - here in Maine, Teh Insurance Industry and Big Pharma shelled out Big Bux on TV ads

to Kill the Bill - and to convince Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to vote against it.

Teh Insurance Industry and Big Pharma laid down the $$$$ to Kill the same Bill that "some people" claimed would be a "giveaway" to them.

Who were those "some people"?

:evilgrin:

[chimpymustgo]

22. DC area: Pharma ran ads urging folks to THANK Sens. Webb and Warner for supporting the bill.

Inside/outside game.

Win/Win for them.

[Junkdrawer]

20. The betting is that the Senate Bill will be forced down the House's throat....

and Wall Street loves that idea...

See:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/plan-b-democrats-consider-how-to-pass-health-care-if-coakley-loses.php?ref=fpa

[ddeclue]

7. Actually I would take that as a sign Brown loses (although I don't think he will)

The Health Care "Reform" bill is a total wet kiss with tongue giveaway to the Insurance Companies - 30,000,000 new customers forced to buy worthless policies in name only at gun point from these insurance companies, subsidies to these same companies to protect their profits without reforming them, no negotiation for drug prices, no end to the anti trust exemption.. If I were them I'd have been funding Coakley and rooting for her victory if it meant this windfall was going to pass.

[jpak]

14. That's not what they said on the news tonight and your assertion makes no sense

nope

[theothersnippywshrub]

18. Then why were the hospital stocks down today? They were down because fewer people will receive

needed treatment and care if Brown wins. That means lower revenue and profits for hospitals. That means the stocks go down.

[jpak]

26. Because insurance companies can now keep on denying coverage post-treatment and hospitals lose $$$

when that happens - and their profits and stock values suffer.

Something that would not have happend if "they" had not Killed the Bill - which would have fixed that.

yup!

[theothersnippywshrub]

29. Hospitals don't provide non-emergency care to insured patients until the insurance company approves.

Hospitals make a lot of money treating insured patients because the insurance companies pay the hospitals a lot of money for the treatment provided.

[jpak]

34. That's not true - it happened to my neighbor

He was unemployed but still covered by his COBRA. He was in a car accident that tore up his arm. Three months into post-operative physical therapy, his insurance company denied his post-operative therapy coverage and he was in hock for several thousand dollars. Luckily for him the hospital wrote-off his debt - but they ate the loss.

This shit will continue now that we have Killed the Bill!!1111

hooray!!11

:woohoo:

[SanchoPanza]

8. Yes

AHIP and the Insurance Lobby has been http://undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com/2010/01/health-insurers-funded-chamber.php">funneling tens of millions through the Chamber of Commerce for their attack ads against both bills, and those attacks have only increased since the Senate bill passed. The notion that for-profit insurers like being pounded by regulations and price controls is an absurd fantasy.

[rfranklin]

9. Buy the rumor, sell the news...

Is the old Wall Street adage. The talk today was just a way to get people excited about the stocks and create some action. It has virtually no connection to reality. Tomorrow, either way, there will probably be a big sell-off and there will be equally ridiculous explanations from the financial press about it.

[andym]

10. Not a surprise. Predicted by stock analysts a few days ago

NO HCR, higher insurer stocks
No regulation is better than any, as far as big business is concerned.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7486317&mesg_id=7486317

[Political Heretic]

15. Wall Street wins either way - that's usually how they set up the game.

They win big if no bill passes.

They already scored countless victories and still win if this bill passes.

This is how they always play the game - fix both sides of the coin; fight for defeat of reform legislation while at the same time insuring that any passed legislation will either directly benefit them or minimize any serious impact.

The senate bill does both - actively benefits them in several key ways and minimizes any existing impact.

Wall street plays for keeps, and they cover all the bases.

[jpak]

16. kick

and a shout out to this thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7509966

[Stinky The Clown]

19. Pathetic

:eyes:

[jpak]

21. Kill the Bill is what Banksters were banking on - yup

They win

We lose

THAT's pathetic

[Political Heretic]

17. Incidentally, insurance stock also shot through the roof when the Senate passed the bill.

Like I said, wall street plays both sides of the fence, and they've insured that they win either way.

Better for the american people to not get this bill and try again (even though it will take time) then codify a victory bill for wall street that I believe will actively hurt working families in the long run, and be forced to try and un-do all of that later.

[Codeine]

23. No they didn't.

They had some small gains that day. Some went down even.

[Political Heretic]

28. Um.. YES, they did.

[Political Heretic]

32. "HMO stocks rise as Senate gets set to weigh reform" 3.35 BILLION gain

NEW YORK (Reuters)—Shares of U.S. health insurers rose on Monday as investors reacted positively to the latest legislative developments on health reform.
Advertisement

Health insurance stocks have swung dramatically this year on prospects for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, as investors fear reform will severely hurt the industry's future profits.

Over the weekend, a reform plan cleared an important hurdle in the U.S. Senate, but a number of key senators remained uncommitted to the legislation itself. Debate on the bill will start Nov. 30 and is expected to last at least three weeks.

"If anything, you're going to have to moderate the bill to keep people in place, which bodes more well for this group because it takes some of the really scary stuff out of the equation," said David Heupel, a portfolio manager with Thrivent Investment Management.

http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20091123/NEWS01/911239995

[Codeine]

33. That was in November, before debate had even begun.

[Political Heretic]

40. It is one link in a series of three, showing the consistent bump in health care stocks

throughout and up to the final agreement on the senate bill on 12/21, leading to its passage in 12/24.

[theothersnippywshrub]

24. That is not true.

[Political Heretic]

31. "Healthcare shares rise as reform bill progresses"

BOSTON (Reuters) - Healthcare shares rose on Monday as a bill to reform healthcare passed the first critical test in the Senate, without many of the provisions, such as a government-run health insurance option, that investors most feared would hurt profits.

Hot Stocks

The S&P Healthcare Index rose 1.4 percent, while the Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor stock index rose 3.6 percent. The S&P Managed Health Care index rose 4.6 percent.

"All in all, relative to the last version of health reform issued by the Senate, things have turned out pretty well for the health insurance industry," said Carl McDonald, an analyst at Oppenheimer. "In particular, all versions of a government-run health plan have largely been eliminated."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BK2AR20091221

[theothersnippywshrub]

36. Your linked article says nothing about insurance company stocks when the Senate passed the bill.

Your original untrue post did. The reason your linked article makes no reference to when the Senate passed the bill is because the article was published before the Senate passed the bill. The gains described in the article brought the stocks back to where they were a few days earlier.

[Political Heretic]

41. That is untrue according to the other two articles I posted, including 538's detailed breakdown.

It's true that health care stocks have been all over the place.

It's also true that health care stocks, including insurance industry stocks, have repeatedly jumped in relation to news on the progress of the health care bill.

There are lots of things we can say about that, how big of an indicator that is, or how small; the fluctuations in stock or the reasons for it.

But one thing that can't be intelligently argued is that there's been no connection to forward milestones on the health care bill and upticks in health stocks.

This is such a silly thing to argue about, because it makes perfect sense. Most of the forward movement on health care has been due to negotiations that make concessions that the health industry would like. Of course stocks are going to bump on that news, and then slump again based on other news.

My point, which I thought I made pretty clear and doesn't strike me as "controversial" at all, is that insurance industry is playing both sides of the fence. If they can get the bill killed, they cheer. If they can weaken the bill and shape it more to their liking (which they have indisputably successfully done on several occasions), they cheer.

Then I pointed out that stocks rose on news of forward progress on the bill - which despite all the qualifiers and obfuscations you throw up is TRUE. It may not mean much, but its true. Gains may not last long, but its still TRUE. There's nothing UNTRUE about what I said.

[Political Heretic]

43. "INSURANCE STOCKS RISE ON THE NEWS OF HEALTH CARE DEAL"

If you have a problem, take it up with 538, or the other examples I posted of how stocks have spiked on news of advances in health care legislation.

This isn't rocket science, and accepting this simple truth doesn't harm your position on health care.

Insurance stocks could rise and it could still be argued that HCR bill needs to be passed for Americans. These no reason to distort such a benign truth as the fact that stocks in the health sector jumped up on news of deal on bill... as it ticked up on news of loss of public option, as it did on news of other forward movements....

What I'm saying isn't controversial.. its sort of like saying that the sky is blue. Of course their stocks would go up.

My point was just to remind people that business is playing both sides of the fence on this - trying to kill the bill and pushing to alter the bill to better suit their interests.

Pretty simple stuff.

[jpak]

27. try again

:rofl:

[Political Heretic]

30. 3.35 BILLION DOLLARS in market capitalization added on news of Senate Bill Passage:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/insurance-stocks-rise-on-news-of-health.html

[jpak]

35. and how much capitalization will they make when our new friend Scott Brown Kills the Bill!!!!

:shrug:

[Political Heretic]

39. Thank you for making my point: that they are playing BOTH sides of the fence.

If the bill is killed, its a win.

If the bill that they have worked so tirelessly to revise and gut is passed, they win.

[theothersnippywshrub]

37. Your linked post is dated December 21, 2009. The Senate passed the bill on December 24, 2009.

Your original post is still untrue.

On edit: Your linked article also concludes that the rise in share prices of the insurance stocks likely was due to an anticipated increase in the number of people insured and not to any increase in profit margins.

[Political Heretic]

38. The agreement was reached on the 21st, leading to the vote on the 24th.

The vote wasn't the day it was decided. The 21st was the day it was decided.

[theothersnippywshrub]

42. Someone posted the following words: "when the Senate PASSED the bill." (emphasis added)

That person made an untrue statement. Which I accurately pointed out.

[Political Heretic]

44. Stocks rose on the 24th too, for the limited time the market was open.

However, I apologize for not making myself explicitly clear because I thought no one would be stupid enough or disingenuous enough to miss my meaning.

When I said when the Senate passed the bill, I didn't mean "at the very minute and second the official vote was taken in the Senate chamber...." although stocks DID rise on the 24th.

What I mean, and what I assumed no one would be unable to understand, is that once the agreement on the Senate Bill was reached and announced, when it was a done deal, on 12/21. The response from investors in the insurance sector was to cause those stocks to jump, but several billions of dollars in worth.

Which is exactly what happened.

I believe you attempt to come back now and quibble over semantics is because you were wrong and you know it, but hey maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all you were ever trying to do was just quibble over a technicality.

We'll let other readers decide.

[sendero]

25. That's funny..

... because this bill didn't stand in the way of profits, exactly the opposite.

People who think they understand the day to day movements of stocks are like people who think they understand the mutterings of schizophrenics.