Shares of health insurance providers, such as Humana Inc., and drug makers, including Pfizer Inc., fell Wednesday after voters gave control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Democrats, who've pledged to cut government health care payments.
Shares of Humana Inc., the second-largest provider of Medicare drug benefits, dropped 5.9 percent. New York-based Pfizer Inc., which is the world's biggest drug maker and has major Connecticut operations, fell 2.5 percent, and Merck & Co. declined 3.4 percent...
Don't shed too many tears for Big Pharma, however:
(That's from "Pharmaceutical Industry Profits Increase by Over $8 Billion After Medicare Drug Plan Goes Into Effect," a report issued by Congressman Henry Waxman's office; PDF here, HTML here.)
As for Humana, its year-over-year quarterly profit tripled in the most recent quarter, one big reason being its Medicare plans.
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