A few months ago I had grown tired of the seemingly endless ups and downs of congressional health care sausage making. Since I was following the debates very closely and tend to get emotionally involved when the lives of our citizens and the future of our nation are at stake; a toll was being exacted on my mental health.
The debate I was following closest was that the Senate reform proposal would provide even more profits and power to the much hated Health Insurance Companies. It was at this point I posted a comment to someone else’s diary that I was going to start ignoring the daily or hourly euphoria and teeth-gnashing. (A promise I was unable to keep.)
My stated pledge at that time was that I was going to assess the merits of the end product by simply checking the stock market for results for Health Insurance stocks the day after the reform bill cleared congress.
That day was yesterday.
My thinking was that a huge increase in the value of Health Insurance stocks would indicate that we had unwittingly enacted yet another big business "bail out;" in this case to the most evil of industries that least deserves one. Conversely, a decrease would indicate that people paid to look into the future of business prospects view HCR as damaging to the near monopoly enjoyed by the health insurance companies.
When I turned to the business section of the Louisville Courier Journal this morning I was disheartened to see the headline, "Market gets a shot in the arm-Health Care bill’s passage aids stocks." However, upon reading the article the feeling was that the market in general was up due to some easing of the uncertainties of health care costs which have been a burden to the entire economy. As one would expect, segments of the economy that were going to see an increase in PAYING customers, hospital and pharma stocks where also up.
It was then that I dug deeper and found the kicker; stocks for three major health insurers Humana, United Health, and Wellpoint had all gone down Monday. The losses were not large when gauged against Friday’s close but they had dropped $0.68, 1.07 and 0.68 a share respectively. Further, the loss was more significant when compared to market highs recorded when it looked like the Health Care Reform effort was dead (Humana shares were almost $3.00 higher in January.)
What does it mean? Since I see no reports of insurance exec bodies splattered around the Humana high-rise in Louisville; it is not the crash of 1929 for the health insurers. However, these slightly negative reports, in light of congressional action that many consider a huge victory for the health insurance industry; IMHO can only be viewed at worst as a draw. Maybe, just maybe, the market is accurately reflecting that the days of the insurance companies controlling access to timely and effective health care in America are starting to come to a close.