What We're Reading

If you're like me, we're all wondering what is going to occur with ACA (Obamacare) once Donald Trump takes office and the charts from Healthcare (XLV) and Biotech (XBI) certainly reflect the concern.  With the proposed 21st Century Cures Act, due for Senate passage this week, be the $5Billion dollar "game changer"  the sector is waiting for...........or will we be waiting until Congress replaces the unpopular components of Obamacare to see an impact in stock price?

Repealing or replacing Obamacare is fraught with at least six major issues, but perhaps the most significant one is a lack of decisiveness within the Republican party itself. What would Obamacare be replaced with, and how would that change be implemented?

Interestingly, there are at least seven Republican plans that have been tabled to replace Obamacare. Within that group, two of the more prominent ones come from Georgia Rep. Tom Price and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Tom Price, who is Trump’s pick as the incoming secretary for

As the market partied this week, believing that Obamacare would be smashed and their premiums would revert back to lower levels, I sat and chuckled.  You're already spending money you haven't received in terms of lower premiums but there's always a price. Always. Already the "costs" of repealing ACA are being calculated and surprise surprise, it won't be free or easy.  In fact QZ ponders it will cost "us" Billions but let's examine the possibilities.  From BuzzFeed:

In the wake of Donald Trump’s stunning victory Tuesday night, the only certainty for the American health care industry is the end of the Affordable Care Act, at least in its current form.

Everything else for the industry, however, is deeply uncertain. Supreme Court cases have jeopardized parts of Obamacare before, but with a Trump presidency, the industry is for the first time facing the real possibility of a drastic and abrupt repeal of the entire ACA — a scenario that some industry sources say insurance companies and hosp

• For all the worrying about weather impacting job creation, Trim Tabs say real time tax receipt data (allegedly more reliable than BLS data) suggests that the economy has been picking up steam.  24/7WallStreet
• A 8.2% magnitude earthquake overnight off the coast of Chile with a 2 meter tsunami.  Supposedly mining operations have not been affected buy you try to tell that to silver and gold this morning.  They're not buying it (so far)
• Interesting metrics from Flurry on mobile usage today.  GOOG accounts for 18% of time spent by consumers which includes YouTube, while FB is 17%.   Android web browsing is losing market share, going from 20% or usage down to 14%
• Facebook apps continue to hold strength ahead of Google according to Comscore data..  Twitter's app was only used by 22.8% of U.S. smartphone users in January. 77.6% used Facebook's core app, and 27.5% Instagram. Five different Google apps were used by over 40% of users.
• The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) met it's targ

Maybe it's backfiring.  Maybe those who had pre-existing conditions accepted that having coverage was worth the higher price versus no coverage at all.  Add in those with lower income levels who had no insurance previously.  A big bump.  Maybe all the foot stomping over website glitches (which is common with new websites folks),  fear mongering of information security, "death panels" and contraception coverage from the angel-believing right are being drowned out.  

A new survey shows 64% of Americans now back ACA, of course slight revisions being supported as well but wasn't that expected?  No major law goes on the books without tweaks and revisions but this is actually good news if you're long certain healthcare names whose price has benefited the last few years. 

Of course maybe Bloomberg's survey is inaccurate.  Stranger things have happened but MSM (main stream media) would have you believe ACA (Obamacare) is a nightmare and hated nationwide.  Maybe, just maybe, MSM is feeding us