Jon Markman, Trader’s Advantage
“The bottom line is that, just as Europe is on a path to mutualize its sovereign debts, the United States is on a path to fully mutualize health care in a single-payer system in which the government supersedes certain roles currently played by insurers. This should be good for hospitals and drug makers because they will have greater assurance of payment for their services and products. But it might be bad for insurance companies, which could find their margins squeezed by the government big-footing their industry.
“The bottom line is that insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) and WellPoint (NYSE:WLP) might suffer a structural impediment for awhile, or at least until their lobbyists find a way to squirm out of this tight spot. And drug makers such as Merck (NYSE:MRK) and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT), and hospital groups like HCA Holdings (NYSE:HCA), should find that they have a larger pool of paying customers.”
Read Jon’s in-depth take on the SCOTUS ruling and opportunities in health care.
Charles Sizemore, The Sizemore Investment Letter
“Outside of the health care sector, where there will be some clear winners and losers, the Supreme Court’s decision won’t have much of a direct effect on the market. Sure, you can make the somewhat ideological case that big government programs stunt growth over time — which, all else equal, should reduce corporate profits and thus stock returns. But over the next several months and years, the outcome of the European sovereign debt crisis and the possibility of a sharp Chinese slowdown will have far greater impacts. Obamacare might be grabbing the headlines, but investors should be paying far more attention to what’s happening in this week’s euro summit.”
Read more about Charles’ take on the eurozone.
More on the Ruling
- Read what your fellow investors are saying here, and leave your own comments on the SCOTUS decision on InvestorPlace.com. You also can leave a post on our Facebook page, drop me an email at editor@investorplace.com or hit me up on Twitter via @JeffReevesIP.
- If you want to read the full opinion, get the ruling here on the Supreme Court’s official website (in PDF format).
- If you want plain English explanations of events as they unfold, I highly recommend the SCOTUSblog, a website sponsored by Bloomberg Law.
- A great quick read: Capsule comments on CNN from the justices who wrote an opinion on the matter.
- A great quick history via an interactive timeline of the health care legislation by USA TODAY, from its proposal to its passage and challenge.
- Check out a recap of the number of times “broccoli” made it into the ruling on this great WSJ article. The vegetable was part of an “Uncle Sam is forcing us to eat broccoli” meme from oral arguments.
- Funny list of morons on Facebook saying they will move to Canada to avoid socialists in America and Obamacare … uh, OK. Hope you like their state-run health care system.
- Ezra Klein and his cohorts at The Washington Post run a great policy section of the paper’s website called “Wonkblog.” I guarantee some great updates will be coming across the next few days there, including today’s post: What the Supreme Court decision means for insurers, hospitals and drugmakers.
- Wondering what motivated John Roberts and what makes him tick? This exhaustive 2009 profile in The New Yorker on the chief justice after he joined the court is one of the best out there — even three years later.
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