Investing in Health Care Reform
by Charles Rotblut, CFA
Like any piece of major legislation, the new health care reform law brings both opportunities and potential traps for investors.
To help AAII members identify both, we contacted a few companies that run health care sector mutual funds. Fidelity, Janus and T. Rowe Price either made their health care fund managers available for comment or provided copies of internal interviews with their respective managers on this topic. Table 1 shows the performance of the health care funds managed by those whose views we present.
In this article
Share this article
Facebook
Twitter
E-mail
SeekingAlpha
Stumbleupon
Delicious
LinkedIn
A common theme, not surprisingly, was that the cloud of political uncertainty has been lifted from the health care sector. Going forward, mutual fund managers think the emphasis will be on cost controls and innovation. Health care companies that provide either, or both, stand most likely to benefit.
Here is an overview of the mutual fund managers’ take on health care reform as it affects investors.
To read more, please become an AAII member or CLICK HERE.
Discussion
I have moral qualms about the idea that information technology will bring in high profits by reinventing the wheel many times. The VA, in fact, has an excellent IT program that is on its 9th (or more) revision which involves transferring images and data records nationwide among its medial centers. If public monies are being spent for such IT, why is it not in the public domain? Of course, communication links with other systems can be a stumbling block and require work. The healthcare reform will boost a sector not mentioned specifically in the article. As drugs are tailored to a patient's genetic profile, either in the testing of new drugs or expended application of old drugs AND in identifying genetic profiles of future patients by practitioners, there is tremendous market for the makers of genetic tests and thelabs doing such testing. Developing such testing kits for simple application is also an area for growth. I'd like to see an article identifying such companies that would profit from not just an increased population of patients, but for this future development in medical practice. I believe ABT and LH are examples of companies profiting from such a development.
posted about 1 year ago by David from Delaware
