Health insurer stocks have crushed market averages since Obamacare passed

Back when Obamacare became law, there was lots of worry from the health care industry about how a new layer of government bureaucracy would be terrible for business. Insurance plans would have to cover sicker patients and executives were nervous that those patients, with their many prescriptions and procedures, would be bad for the bottom line — especially if healthy patients didn’t turn up.

This chart from Modern Healthcare should put an end to much of that worry. It shows share prices for major health insurance plans in America — and they are all soaring.

Health plans have handily outperformed the S&P 500 during Obamacare’s implementation. And it’s easy to see why: the health care law required Americans to purchase the products they sell or pay a penalty. Enough healthy people have apparently turned up — and insurers are doing great in the post-Obamacare landscape.