Healthcare stocks saw a modest bump Tuesday afternoon following oral arguments before the Supreme Court challenging the Affordable Care Act.
During the arguments, justices appeared likely to strike down the ACA's individual mandate as unconstitutional—but also showed indications they would retain the rest of the healthcare law, legal experts said.
RELATED: SCOTUS appears poised to strike down ACA's individual mandate while keeping the rest of the law
That appeared to be seen as a positive sign for both providers and payers, many of which were already buoyed on Monday from positive vaccine news out of Pfizer.
Among those healthcare stocks trending upward before 3 p.m. this afternoon:
Health systems
- Health system giant Universal Health Services ("UHS") was trading at about $133.29, up more than 5% from an opening price of $127.83. (It saw a bump from a close Friday of about $117 to a Monday high of over $132.)
- Franklin, Tennessee-based health system company Community Health Systems ("CYH") was trading at about $10.05, up about 2.7% over its open of $9.96.
- Tenet Healthcare Corp. ("THC") was trading around $33.37, up about 3.7% over its open of $32.50.
- HCA Healthcare ("HCA") was trading at $151.29, up 2.7% over its opening bid of $146.38.
Payers
- Molina Healthcare ("MOH") was trading at about $221.96, up about 7.2% over its opening price of $206.45.
- UnitedHealth Group ("UNH") was trading around $354.78, up about 1.4% over its opening price of $349.49.
- Anthem ("ANTM") was trading at $328.50, up nearly 2% from its opening price of $323.05.
- Cigna ("CI") was trading $221.23, up about 4.75% over its opening price of $212.66.
- Humana ("HUM") was trading at $427.12, up about 1% over the open of $422.31.