Healthcare
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How the Sequester is Killing Healthcare Jobs
Sequester-driven budget cuts to Medicare are threatening to spur massive job cuts in the healthcare industry.
And the pain doesn't stop there - the sequester cuts are already making healthcare harder to obtain for some Medicare patients.
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. The longer Congress allows sequestration to continue, the deeper the cuts will go and the more widespread their impact.
When President Barack Obama and Congress failed to reach agreement on $1.2 trillion in cuts to federal spending before March 30 -- as mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 -- the sequester kicked in.
Medicare providers faced mandatory 2% across-the-board reductions in their reimbursements.
After the cuts went into effect on April 1, hospitals, doctors, insurers, prescription drug plans, and other healthcare providers immediately felt the impact.
In short, the sequester is delivering precisely the kind of broad, damaging and indiscriminate cuts that politicians warned would happen.
And as each day passes, the drastic consequences grow worse.
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Obamacare Ruling: Key Takeaways for Investors and Taxpayers
It's time to buy some insurance for your portfolio following Thursday's landmark Obamacare ruling.
The Supreme Court voted 5-4 in favor of President Obama's controversial healthcare reform law, formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The chief and appellate justices upheld the core of the law which has sweeping political and economic ramifications. Many economists, analysts and healthcare experts warn it's a Pyrrhic victory at best.
President Obama and his supporters cheered the landmark healthcare decision - as Republicans reached for an aspirin, an antacid or an analgesic.
While the GOP vows to throw out the law on day one if Mitt Romney wins Election 2012, the ruling does remove some of the dark clouds that have been looming over healthcare stocks. The uncertainty of the law's passage has had many market participants staying away from the sector.
Obamacare Ruling and the Average Household
What Obamacare means for the average American working family with an annual household income up to approximately $90,000, is that starting in 2014, they will be able to purchase private insurance through new state insurance markets at prices subsidized according to income level.
Mammograms, cancer screenings and other preventative healthcare measures will be available without deductibles or co-pays.
Adult children can remain on parents' health insurance plans until they are 26. Seniors can continue to receive discounts on prescription drugs, and health insurers will continue to pay rebates on premiums not adequately targeted at healthcare services.
In addition, insurers will no longer be able to deny coverage to adults with a pre-existing medical condition and must stop or limit the practice of discriminatory pricing based on gender, age and current health status.
Furthermore, healthcare providers will gravitate away from the conventional fee-for-service approach toward systems that coordinate care.
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Stock Market Today: Obamacare Upheld
Volatility in the stock market today is high due to several factors both domestically and abroad.
The Obamacare ruling is the main driver causing uncertainty in the market, followed by the start of the European Union summit today in Brussels.
The Obamacare ruling had been anticipated with such fervor that reporters camped in front of the Supreme Court for days before the decision.
They finally got one - and it may come as a surprise to many.
The controversial mandate that requires everyone to purchase healthcare by 2014 or pay a small fine was upheld. The vote came in at 5-4 with Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito dissenting.
Chief Justice Roberts said that the mandate is not a valid exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause, but it will survive as a tax.
Republicans had been almost certain that the mandate would be stuck down and President Obama can now breathe a small sigh of relief that his healthcare overhaul has been upheld.
Back to the EU summit, which has been awaited with such pessimism that the yield on Spanish 10-year bonds has risen above 7% again and the euro slipped to a three-week low of $1.24 versus the dollar.
There is an unusual and detrimental air of division and discord among the European leaders heading into the summit. The continent needs to work towards more integration rather than fragmentation if they are to lay down a framework for better fiscal, financial and political union.
U.S. unemployment claims fell slightly from the 392,000 initial claims reported last week to a still alarmingly high number of 386,000 for the week ended June 23. The final estimate for the first quarter's gross domestic product (GDP) came in at the expected 1.9%, but that estimate had already been lowered last week by the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Looking beyond these reports, here are some stocks in the headlines today.
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Investing in Nanotechnology: FEI Co. (Nasdaq: FEIC) is the Top "Picks and Shovels" Play
The word "nanotechnology" gets thrown around a lot but it still remains a fuzzy concept for most people.
From a self-aware, self-assembling grey goo that takes over the world in a Michael Crichton book, to Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Nano music player or Tata Motor's (NYSE ADR: TTM) Nano car, it's hard to get a clear picture of what nanotech really is.
But as global World Economic Forum member and emerging tech guru Dr. Tim Harper explains, "Nanotechnology is to the 21st Century what chemistry was to the 20th Century."
Like plastics, computers, and the Internet before it, nanotechnology will change the world in ways that we can't even imagine now. That's how powerful the nano-world will become.
That's why every long-term growth investor needs to consider investing in nanotechnology. In terms of scale, the potential for investors is simply enormous.
That's why one company, FEI Co. (Nasdaq: FEIC) is on my list of "buys" as the top "picks and shovels" play.
The Miracle of Nanotechnology
So what exactly is nanotech?
It's a way of working with objects and materials at the atomic level, one molecule at time.
That means that in the near future, we will be able to custom design structures literally from the ground up, molecule by molecule, creating a quantum leap forward in medicine, materials, electronics, food, and fuels - practically everything we know of.
In fact, one of the biggest sectors where nanotech continues to have a huge impact is in drug development and drug delivery.
Recent nanotech developments include: cancer treatments without chemotherapy or radiation, long-dose treatment of diabetes with a single monthly injection, long-release or on-demand blood pressure medications, and textiles to build skin, bone or organs from you own cells.
Developments like these will invariably lead to big money
A recent report by Cientifica, a leading global emerging technology consulting firm predicts:
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Healthcare Mandate Question: Should the U.S. Government Require Everyone To Buy Health Insurance?
In a year of sweeping overhauls in healthcare, financial reform and tax policies, critics of U.S. President Barack Obama's proposals have called them ineffective, shortsighted and misinformed.
This week, in a case that will likely go all the way to the Supreme Court, a federal District Court judge in Virginia added the term "unconstitutional" to that pointed list.
The provision in question is part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the U.S. healthcare reform initiative signed into law in March. It requires all Americans, unless exempted for religious or other reasons, to carry health insurance - or to pay a penalty for failing to do so.
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Japan's Astellas Pharma Is the Latest Company to Go Global to Dodge Patent Problems
Japan's second-largest drug maker Astellas Pharma, Inc. announced yesterday (Sunday) it would buy U.S. biotech OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: OSIP) for $4 billion to increase its exposure to the U.S. pharmaceuticals market and build up its struggling pipeline.
The all-cash bid is Astellas' second for the sought-after OSI after a March 1 $3.5 billion offer was rejected. Astellas will pay $57.50 per OSI share, 11% more than the first offer and 55% more than OSI's last closing price before Astellas starting bidding. OSI closed at $59.80 Friday.
OSI's money-making cancer drug Tarceva generated $1.2 billion in sales last year and is projected to bring in $7 billion in revenue through 2020. Astellas wants to build a global cancer-drug business and jointly develop more cancer drugs with OSI.
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Buy, Sell or Hold: Is Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) the Right Prescription for Your Portfolio?
In 2008, the journal Health Affairs reported that 25% of China's adult population - about 375 million people - was "overweight" or "obese."
That number is expected to double by 2028, and obesity is just one health issue in a densely polluted nation that finds itself battling a growing list of ailments.
So it's no surprise that China's pharmaceutical market has been surging at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 16% -- the fastest pace in the world, according to research by market-intelligence leader IMS Health Inc. (NYSE: RX). IMS Health estimates that by 2020 the Chinese market for pharmaceuticals will be $110 billion, second only to the United States.
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The U.S. Employment Outlook: Bad For Paychecks, Good For U.S. Stocks
You undoubtedly know by now that the U.S. economy added 164,000 jobs in March. While that was the best number in ages, anyone who looked closely at the payrolls report issued by the U.S. Labor Department would discover that it was actually riddled with problems.
Indeed, the report sends a very clear message: While the March report is consistent with a gradually improving labor market, the numbers hardly convey a sense of an economy that's zooming its way back to health.
Still, as we'll see, this employment scenario could be a good one for U.S. stocks.
