Health care stocks can finally take a breath of relief. For months, they’ve been trading with the Supreme Court decision on President Barack Obama’s health reform law looming over them. Finally, today, the court announced its decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act.
The justices voted 5-4 to keep the individual mandate, the most controversial piece of the law, as a tax.
Overall, the stock market has been down this morning, led by falling bank stocks, but the health care sector is going in its own direction. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by 1.03% nearing noon EST on Thursday.
After the decision was announced, shares of hospital chains jumped, with the whole sector up 1.48%. Tenet Healthcare Corp. shot up 11% initially before falling back to a 9.84% gain and HCA Holdings is up 7.85%.
Click to enlarge
The biggest gainer of the morning, so far, is Community Health Systems, Inc. which was up 10.75%, pushing the stock up to a new 52-week high.
Image copyright CNNMoney.com.
However, there’s one industry in the health care sector not doing as well and that is insurers. WellPoint Inc. was down 5.80%. Aetna Inc. was down 4.41% and Cigna Corp. was down 5.29%.
