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If the Obama healthcare plan passes in a form acceptable to Obama, what will be the play leading up to and after the passage of the bill? I am thinking that with socialized medicine and rationed healthcare, the Healthcare sector and pharms will not be a good bet. With minimum emphasis on developing new drugs (too expensive) and no incentive to prolong life (too expensive), I wonder if the entire pharm industry will decline.
1 in 20 Medicare beneficiaries (65+) die each year with 30% of all Medicare expenses used by the beneficiary being in the last year of their life. Got me to thinking. If Obama's healthcare plan goal is to safe costs, then sufficient savings can be realized by delaying care and/or drugs since the beneficiary will die regardless. Is prolonging the life of an 85 yo grandmother by several months really worth the thousands of dollars in Medicare costs? In Obama's world, probably not so medical advances will probably move to the backburner.
But we can never let a good crisis go to waste so there must be a way to game the situation. Not a lot of funeral homes chains are publicity traded, but casket makers are. The downside is many people are now opting for cremation because of the high cost of funerals, caskets and plots. Some graveyard companies are traded but with space reuse, probably not a growth sub-sector. So what would be the Obama healthcare play? Thoughts?
If the Obama healthcare plan passes in a form acceptable to Obama, what will be the play leading up to and after the passage of the bill? I am thinking that with socialized medicine and rationed healthcare, the Healthcare sector and pharms will not be a good bet. With minimum emphasis on developing new drugs (too expensive) and no incentive to prolong life (too expensive), I wonder if the entire pharm industry will decline.
1 in 20 Medicare beneficiaries (65+) die each year with 30% of all Medicare expenses used by the beneficiary being in the last year of their life. Got me to thinking. If Obama's healthcare plan goal is to safe costs, then sufficient savings can be realized by delaying care and/or drugs since the beneficiary will die regardless. Is prolonging the life of an 85 yo grandmother by several months really worth the thousands of dollars in Medicare costs? In Obama's world, probably not so medical advances will probably move to the backburner.
But we can never let a good crisis go to waste so there must be a way to game the situation. Not a lot of funeral homes chains are publicity traded, but casket makers are. The downside is many people are now opting for cremation because of the high cost of funerals, caskets and plots. Some graveyard companies are traded but with space reuse, probably not a growth sub-sector. So what would be the Obama healthcare play? Thoughts?
My question is where do the tax revenues from private sector heathcare profits go when it gets nationalized? Doesn't healthcare account for 20%of our economy? Major dent in the revenue stream if you ask me, let alone the costs associated with running a nanny state. Less revenue and more expenses equals more money printing.
There will always be demand for private doctors and private hospitals. Just like there is demand for private schools and private universities. They won't evaporate, research won't evaporate. My proof Australia and 99% of most developed nations. America has one of the lowest life expentancies compared to most modern countries in Europe and countries such as Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand. America spends more per person on health care than these countries. I spent a few years living in Australia, I have experienced their health care, I made a lot of friends there and trust me...9 out of 10 people you talk to would not even think about changing their health care system. Speaking from personal experience and not the media or Republicans or Democrats...my own experience.
The best way to game the system is to be a government administrator in the health care system, making a fat salary for doing basically nothing and enjoying opportunities for graft, not unlike an executive in a private company.
In that context, I believe that there are plenty of listed Swiss and French pharmaceutical companies, for example, that profitably sell to government and other types of health care systems throughout the world, US ones too.
The dynamics may shift somewhat as the US tweaks its hodgepodge system towards a more government-run system, and they may shift further if it goes eventually to a proper single-payer system, but it would simply be joining the majority. In any case, being a small investor in equities is a crap shoot.
What I don't like about this proposal it is the insistence on putting the preponderance of the burden on small businesses and this ridiculous, ideological, demagogic surcharge on top income earners: unemployment will remain around 10% for many years to come.
To be sure, in principle, free market solutions are best, but a free market depends on price transparency, the lack of which is a hallmark of the US health care industry, and it is not even on the agenda, therefore it is hopeless to expect free market solutions.
For better and for worse, I believe that European individuals and companies pay around 4% of their income, or in some cases operating expenses, as a tax to their single-payer (government) health care systems. They spend about half as much as the US in terms of GDP per capita, though to be sure they are as deep in the red as the US system, but it helps keep the social peace. I would be willing to pay 3%-4% of my gross earned income, or perhaps total income with a cap like social security, for a single-payer system, and do away with the headache of shopping for incomprehensible private health insurance plans (no price transparency, no free market), collection agencies for unpaid bills and so on, and then take my chances with the quality of the health care that results, since I am mostly responsible for that personally anyway.
In short, supplying health care to everyone is expensive, and on balance non-productive, no matter how you slice it. Perhaps, through education, we should focus on teaching people healthy lifestyle choices. But good education begins at home.
At any rate, as a conservative investor, I would say to look to well-established European health care industry companies (mainly pharmaceutical and equipment supply companies, not insurance companies) with a long history of paying dividends as models. Being on the receiving end of such dividends would help offset some of your contributions to the system, better than nothing, and, again, it helps keep the social peace.
Tink the same way as OP;I have to wander if it qwould be better on society if it was thought of differently.Trama care ius very expensive in hospitals. What if driveby shooting wre just allowed to die and drug overdoses which are self administer were left to die. I mean both are likely to happen again and both contribute liitle and actually harm society. I would do this but if we are goig to cut cost that way why save epople who are harmful to society.Why decide to allow some grand mother to die that's likely is lookig after the OD's children.On the same line shuld people that are paying the highest taxes be in line for firat andbest care and on down the line.Kind of a survival of the modern fitest. Why elimnate the person who hrams no one when there so many who are a burden thuough out their lifes and provide nothing to anyone of value.Just how crazy that can get.
In that context, I believe that there are plenty of listed Swiss and French pharmaceutical companies, for example, that profitably sell to government and other types of health care systems throughout the world, US ones too.
Not sure what you are saying. If the US healthcare systems rolls over, then the rest of the world's healthcare companies will also rollover.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bale002
For better and for worse, I believe that European individuals and companies pay around 4% of their income, or in some cases operating expenses, as a tax to their single-payer (government) health care systems. They spend about half as much as the US in terms of GDP per capita, though to be sure they are as deep in the red as the US system, but it helps keep the social peace.
I would like to see your references for this statistics. The folks I know who live in Europe (Germany) tell me they pay 55% or so of their income to taxes. They get 'free' healthcare, but like in Canada it can take weeks to see a doctor and months for a referral to a medical specialist. My friends who are mid-30s/40s often go without medical visits because of the time involved. There is a reason why Canadians who can afford it opt for treatment in the US.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bale002
In short, supplying health care to everyone is expensive, and on balance non-productive, no matter how you slice it. Perhaps, through education, we should focus on teaching people healthy lifestyle choices. But good education begins at home.
This is an idealist solution that doesn't work in real life. Education works for those who actually care about their health. If education was the answer, people would not continue to smoke, or have more kids than they can support, or use illegal drugs. Education works for those who care.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bale002
At any rate, as a conservative investor, I would say to look to well-established European health care industry companies (mainly pharmaceutical and equipment supply companies, not insurance companies) with a long history of paying dividends as models. Being on the receiving end of such dividends would help offset some of your contributions to the system, better than nothing, and, again, it helps keep the social peace.
As I mentioned above, the world pharams are all in the same basket. The US falls, the worlds falls. Keep your eye on the healthcare bill. If it looks like it might pass, bail out of anything remotely linked to pharam, biomed or health insurance. I would expect sympathetic declines in other sectors as well. Hopefully, these sectors should recover within a few weeks. Might be wise to have some cash on hand to pick up depressed equities. If it looks like it will fail, pile onto the pharams. My opinion.
If it looks like it will fail, pile onto the pharams.
I agree. If the Obama plan falters, as I think it will (no matter what anyone says, this country simply san not afford it right now), pharms might be a good play, as will be drugstores like WAG, CVS, and RAD.
As for your initial morbid analysis, take a look at SCI.
From what I can see, the Obama plan will extend health care to the uninsured (a good thing) without actually achieving the benefits that "socialized" health systems get, notably a reduction in the cost of medication through government regulation. So we will get the worst of both worlds; the high cost of a fully private system with the high tax of a "socialized" system.
If the plan passes don't over think it. Just short and hold the insurers.
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