Obama: High Noon for Health Care
WASHINGTON D.C. (
) -- President Obama laid down the health care legislative gauntlet on Wednesday, challenging Congress to vote "yes" or "no" on health care reform in the next few weeks.
Flanked by doctors wearing white lab coats -- though clearly not waving the white flag of surrender and capitulating to Republican requests to start from scratch (i.e. let health care reform fail) -- President Obama said that Congress owes the American people a final vote on the health care reform package.
It seemed that President Obama was as tired as health care investors after the year-long debate. "This has been a long and wrenching debate," the president said. This Friday marks one year since President Obama began his effort to enact sweeping health care reform.
The White House announced that President Obama will be on the health care reform campaign Air Force One circuit in the next week, traveling to Pennsylvania and Missouri.
Health care stocks seem unfazed by the latest political gamesmanship on health care reform, with the health care sector down marginally on Wednesday afternoon, matching the overall market enervation on Wednesday, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index trading near flat on the day.
The performance among hospital and drug stocks was mixed late on Wednesday afternoon. Most of the big managed care stocks were trading up, but by modest margins.
At the close,
Cigna
(CI) - Get Report
was up 0.73% to $34.69;
WellPoint
(WLP)
was up 46 cents to $62.36; UnitedHealth was up 15 cents to $34.10;
Aetna
gained 25 cents at $31.28 and
Humana
(HUM) - Get Report
was flat at $47.49.
Obama called on all Democrats to fall in line and support the legislation, and while during his 15-minute speech did not specifically discuss congressional "reconciliation," that congressional strong-arm tactic is expected to loom large in the coming weeks.
Obama had already on Tuesday offered concessions to Republicans, on medical malpractice claims and encouraging the use by individuals of medical savings accounts.
-- Reported by Eric Rosenbaum in New York.
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