Healthcare sector's market interaction with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Authors
Leichty, Shelby
Advisor
Nesson, Erik
Issue Date
2015-05
Keyword
Degree
Thesis (B.?)
Department
Honors College
Other Identifiers
Abstract

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is a highly debated topic with strong advocates and strong opponents; it is out of the scope of this paper to determine the validity or invalidity of the PPACA. Instead, this research attempts to discover if there is a correlation between the healthcare sector markets and events in the PPACA timeline. Depending on if there is a correlation, information will be gathered and assumed about the market's belief for the future of healthcare companies post-PPACA due to varying stock prices. The healthcare sector assets to be analyzed are the Health Care Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLV), UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH), Humana Inc. (HUM), and Anthem, Inc. (ANTM). These assets were chosen to broadly encompass the entire healthcare industry and sub-industries, although not in the industry's entirety. The events this research analyzes focuses on are three highly eventful shocks: Scott Brown's election, Senate passage of bill HR 3590, and the Supreme Court's constitutional ruling. These three events hold the most hypothesized reaction in the healthcare sector's stock prices. This research analyzes the market reaction of healthcare sector assets compared to the S&P 500 after PPACA timeline event shocks.