In Health Care Ruling, Investors See a Mixed Blessing

Andrew Pollack & Katie Thomas, New York Times, June 29, 2012 Hospitals will gain millions of paying customers. Insurers, by contrast, could face crimped profits from restrictive rules. Medical device and pharmaceutical companies will bear new taxes and other higher payouts, but they were already expecting such costs. That, at least, was the immediate view of the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday that upheld the nation’s health care overhaul. It was also a view shared by stock market investors. Hospital stocks rose, with HCA gaining about 11 percent and Tenet Healthcare rising 5 percent. Stocks of insurers like WellPoint, however, lost as much as 5 percent. ... In