...in the power of markets to reflect reality (and I still do), it's instructive to look at the performance of the health insurance stocks since Labor Day. Nate Silver has a good piece on this in his blog, fivethirtyeight.com. The bottom line is that since the August recess (and all the town hall silliness), the stock prices of the major insurers have dropped 11% while the S&P 500 has rallied 7%. In other words, the health insurance sector has underperformed the broader market by 20% in the last six weeks or so. For those of you unfamiliar with the financial markets, that price action is signaling that meaningful health insurance reform is on the way. The markets are discounting the industry's future profits and thus pricing their shares lower.
Again, if you believe in the forecasting power of the markets (and those with money have put it where their mouths are), then this may be the best predictor of the success of health care reform.
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