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What Do Investors Need To Know About Government Health Care Plans? + Lee’s take on MSFT, WLP, HUM, AET, IBM, T, XOM, BRK-A, PGR, ALL, MCD, BKC, WEN, KO, PEP, MO, and INTU

InvestorsObserver Featured Contributor
Lee M. Allen

This whole Government National Health Care program debate has fine Americans of all shapes and sizes in quite a lather. Many people think Universal Health Coverage is the right thing for our country, while many other very noisy people think it is the next step on the way to socialism.

Of course, as a journalist with employer-provided health care, I am totally non-biased in any way. But it seems we are closer than we have ever been in our nation’s history to providing universal cradle-to-grave health care for every citizen.

Surprisingly, the United States would not be the first country to do this. Most other developed countries already have some type of national health care in place. That is, if you consider France, Germany, Canada and England developed countries.

But I think the Obama Administration may be trying to do a little too much a little too fast. Maybe they need to consider a way to phase a health care plan into existence a step at a time.

And as you probably expected, I have a few ideas for phase one and none involve lab coats…

Read on for more of Lee’s insights into the National Health Care debate and companies that could be losers and winners...


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So what these smart guys in Washington are fighting about seems to be summed up into one big word… “Change”. Proposals coming out to all these congressional committees and your more popular taverns with cheap and plentiful beer are just trying to overhaul the whole health care system too fast.


The simple chart on how National Health Care
could work – Really!

People in general just don’t like a lot of change in their lives, even if it might be change for the good. Think about it this way… What if George Washington decided he wanted all fifty states right away instead of phasing them in over a few hundred years? Those revolutionary people would have revolted.

I’m not saying that we need to take a few hundred years to get full universal health care in place. Most of us would not be here to see how or if it works out.

But if those smart people in Washington could come up with a few initial steps to get the health care ball rolling, they could keep the optics looking like they are doing more than taking up space or producing large amounts of fast-moving hot air all at our expense.

So when the dust settles in a few weeks and they are about to give up on the whole concept of national health care, they should consider a few of the initial steps below as a much less painful initial phase for national health care:

1. Put all government employees on a pilot national health care plan
Before you start any big thing, you always have to run a test. Microsoft (MSFT) has been testing the next version of Windows for more than a year. How could they even think about a National Health Care System without running a test program? A great way to start that test would be to put every government employee and their families on a pilot National Health Care program this means all the senators, congress people, janitors, General Motors employees, banking industry workers, White House staffers, FBI agents, along with the fine people from the Internal Revenue Service. Only after they survive a year on this plan should they even consider it for the other half of us who are not government employees already.

2. Portability
While we wait to see how many government employees survive this new plan, it would be great if they could pass a law (and I know they can do this) that says we can keep our health insurance plans even if we switch jobs. Besides government employees, the next largest group of currently insured people gets their insurance through their employers. The problem is if people change jobs, get laid off, get sick, can’t show up at work, then get fired… their health insurance may get cancelled. Sure, they may qualify for insurance through a program called COBRA, but they will be paying much more than their company was paying for them before. I guess that is why they call it COBRA instead of FUZZY CUTE POODLE. I never understood why insurance companies like WellPoint (WLP), Humana (HUM), or Aetna (AET) can’t insure someone for the same price next week as they did last week, just because they left a job. It’s a disgrace to our law makers that this problem has not been fixed. It would cost them nothing to help millions of people right now.


Happy English people who finally got the call after waiting seven years – “The doctor will see you now.”

3. Price Competition The last time I checked, our government goes after monopolies like rabid dogs. Remember how much Microsoft stock dropped when the government was threatening monopoly action? Remember the pain and suffering they put companies like International Business Machines (IBM), AT&T (T), and Standard Oil – now part of Exxon Mobile (XOM) - through? But in the meantime, if you or your boss wants to go shopping for health insurance, there is no national health insurance provider, and forget about any price competition. Not gonna happen. They should open up health insurance to the national stage and let’s get the likes of GEICO – owned by Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A), progressive (PGR), and Allstate (ALL) competing to sell this stuff and working hard to improve the service -- another simple law to pass that would cost Uncle Sam not one penny but save us plenty.


Did you think National Health Care
was a new idea?

4. Personal Responsibility
I am probably one of the most guilty people around when it comes to this one... I definitely indulge in more than my fair share of fast food from places like McDonalds (MCD), Burger King (BKC), and Wendy’s (WEN)… But at some point, we need to all take at least a little responsibility for our own health. I am talking about that painful trio our doctors keep telling us about: eat sensibly, exercise every day, and get enough sleep. If we all followed those three simple rules, hospitals and doctors’ offices would be nearly empty and, unfortunately, companies like Coca Cola (KO), Pepsi (PEP), and Altria (MO) would be out of business -- another one that costs Uncle Sam no money unless at some point they consider giving people tax rebates for losing weight and keeping it off. I would be the first one on the diet train if that ever happened.

5. More Doctors and Nurses
One of the big fears people have brought up about a National Health Care plan is that there would not be enough doctors and nurses. You would need to wait in long lines to see a doctor and it could take months for non-essential doctor visits or surgery. What are they thinking? That sounds like they need more doctors and nurses, or is that solution too simple? Those smart guys in Washington should pass some laws so more people are accepted into medical and nursing school. There are plenty of well-qualified people begging to get into medical school who are just not accepted. I knew a woman back in college who was on a pre-med track. She earned mostly “A”s but had a few “B”s on her transcripts. She was turned down for medical school. Put more desks in the classrooms, get more teachers, open more schools… In a few years, when we will need them most, there will be more doctors and nurses… Oh yeah, this is another one that costs Uncle Sam nothing. Why are they so eager to spend my money anyway?

6. Internet Doctors
A company named Intuit (INTU) has a way to automatically prepare your Income Tax forms online over the Internet. You answer a bunch of questions and your completed form 1040 and all the other twelve dozen schedules are done for you. I can tell you from personal experience that income tax preparation is a difficult and nearly impossible task. People have been known to make honest and understandable errors that might even reduce their tax payment significantly. But not if they used this online tax preparation service. So if they can teach a computer to do the extremely complicated task of income tax preparation, then why can’t they teach a computer to ask the right questions and diagnose things like the flu, food poisoning, colds, earaches, hypochondria, leaches, gout, etc? With all the time saved, doctors could focus on the big stuff. And there is seldom any waiting for an Internet computer service to help you. No appointments needed either. And no waiting in that empty examining room for over thirty minutes worried about what is actually in that red biohazard container attached to the wall. Is there a buzzing sound coming from it? Is something moving around in there?


Could this be the answer to
cutting health care costs?

Okay, so I made it through an entire article on the medical field without talking about lab coats. Who picks the colors anyway? Do more important doctors get more pockets? Do the lab coat cleaners check the pockets before washing them and find things like severed fingers? Smart people want to know the answers to these questions and more…

If you have any other ideas on what the ultimate national health care system might do to the stock market or thoughts on how Ronald Reagan ever made it as an actor, email me at LeeAllen@InvestorsObserver.com.

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CLICK HERE to begin your 90 DAYS FREE.

We can make this 90 day FREE offer because we are confident you will find our service an essential part of your investing toolkit and stay a subscriber for many years to come. Our biggest risk is that we do find people cancel their subscriptions when they move to their own private islands without internet access.