Health-Care Stocks Today And Cost Control

Did you notice that over the last week or so advocates of the proposed health-care reform legislation, including President Obama himself, had suddenly stopped emphasizing the aspects of the legislation that purported to "bend the curve" on healthcare costs which, he proclaimed repeatedly, were rising at an unsustainable pace?  


Well, the stock market provided us today with a non-partisan referendum on the effectiveness of the much-ballyhooed "cost control" provisions of this health-care reform legislation that passed the House late Saturday night.  


According to an article on CNN.com that you can read HERE, stocks of hospital operators rocketed up today in the wake of that House vote on Saturday. Tenet Healthcare was up more than 9%, and Community Health Systems shares were up 6.7%.  Companies that provide Medicaid services also advanced. Amerigroup and Molina Healthcare were each up 4%.  And pharmaceutical stocks were also up, with both Merck and Pfizer up 2%.  They all vastly outperformed the broader market today.  The Dow was up 0.4% and the S&P 500 was up 0.5%.