Two Horsemen of Health Care Limping

If you want the best tell to when health care pharma turns, you have to look at the two real darlings of the health care movement: Cardinal Health (CAH - commentary - Cramer's Take) and AmerisourceBergen (ABC - commentary - Cramer's Take).

These are two somewhat-boring money machines that simply coin cash off of the moving around of drugs. It is an unexciting, drab business with good consistent growth and clean accounting. These days, that is loved by the mutual funds.

These two stocks are horses that have pulled a whole cohort. They are lovey blankets for all health care, even more than the Cigna (CI - commentary - Cramer's Take)/United Health (UNH - commentary - Cramer's Take)/Aetna (AET - commentary - Cramer's Take) group.

Now these stocks too are in free fall. Now they are really smashing all the idols.

I have never been partial to these stocks. They made their money by buying each other and having the silly government look the other way when it should have broken things up. I don't think there is much to their businesses. But these have become the go-to health care guys in a world in which many companies have drugs going generic -- good business for them -- and when the drug industry in general is under pressure.

I would put them on your screen; they are reverse canaries in a coal mine. When they stop going down, you are going to see a change. Until then, forget about backing up the truck on anything health care.

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At the time of publication, Cramer was long UnitedHealth Group.

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