Obamacare is not in a death spiral. It's so much not in a death spiral that health insurers are seeing unprecedented stock gains, and their profits haven't stunk, either.
Since March 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, the managed care companies within the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index — UnitedHealth, Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Humana and Centene — have risen far more than the overall stock index. This is no small matter: The stock market soared during that period.
The numbers are astonishing. The Standard & Poor’s stock index returned 135.6 percent in those seven years through Thursday, a performance that we may not see again in our lifetimes. But the managed care stocks, as a whole, have gained nearly 300 percent including dividends, according to calculations by Bespoke Investment Group.
UnitedHealth, the biggest of the managed care companies, with a market capitalization that is now more than $160 billion, returned 480 percent, dividends included. An investment of $100 in the company’s stock when Obamacare was signed into law would be worth more than $580.50 today.
“If Obamacare has been bad for the managed care stocks, why have they performed so well under it?” asked Paul Hickey, a founder of Bespoke Investment Group. “And do they really need to be rescued by Congress?”
Sheryl Skolnick, director of United States equity research for Mizuho Securities, says there are some problems with Obamacare as far as the insurers are concerned. Namely, the individual mandate hasn't been strong enough to make sure that there's a strong mix of healthy (cheap) customers to balance out the sick (expensive) ones. Trumpcare is worse, she says: "I think that’s weaker."
Of course the larger concern with Trumpcare is the millions of people who will once again be without insurance and the tens of thousands who will die prematurely every year because of it. That's a story that needs to keep being told, but telling the story of the totally-not-failing Obamacare needs to be a priority.
Trumpcare is a travesty: It cuts taxes for the rich, kills Medicaid expansion for the poor, and defunds Planned Parenthood. We can defeat it in the Senate if you call the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and contact your senators.