Insurers’ Stocks, Unhurt by the Dawn of the Health Care Law (click here)
By ANNA BERNASEK
Published: October 26, 2013
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....
...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 out performance by the
group...
