sas of wellpoint. sir, in your testimony, you state, quote, last year wellpoint received 380 million claims and processed 97% of them within 30 days. now, i'm looking at the arithmet arithmetic, and if the arithmetic is correct, it means you did not pay within 30 days over 11 million claims. would you tell the subcommittee what is the value in it dollars to wellpoint of the 11 million claims that were not paid in that time period? >> i -- chairman, i don't know the value of that. >> can you provide the subcommittee with such information? there has to be a way to calculate it. >> i'm not sure, because that is at a point in time. the vast majority of those claims, most likely were paid at a future point, either on the 31st day, or if we had requested additional information that was provided and then subs kwoently paid. >> maybe then you could chart out, 30 days, 60, 90 -- businesses operate that way, of course, 120. and if you could provide us information with what was the average cost of each claim that

how can wellpoint further that? >> wellpoint really has a lot to offer that i don't think everyone realizes. for example, we're really getting to this access to affordable quality care in ways that i think are going to be important worldwide. so, for example, we get to tell a medicine, we get our rural members access to health care from urban health care centers. we're innovating around how to ingau ingauge our members. care cen n innovating. i think we have a really important role to play and i'm exciting to be here. >> let me get your sense of what's happening on the national debate over health care reform. we have seen really a country divided over reform. what do you think the reform should look like? >> i think it's really important that we get back to a discussion about health care reform. i think the decision has pivoted somewhat to just focussing on health insurance market reform. while we were the first to the table about ideas agreeing to real industry changes such as including everyone whether they had a

the same thing happened to wellpoint. this is a call-for. i'm calling for the chart of wellpoint.s had been increasingly aggressive. see, every time it bounced off this thing, it came in and bought. at the same time sellers had become increasingly eager to sell. as long as wellpoint buyers were more aggressive, the stocks trended higher. the lows and highs were converging. this is another technical thing i'm giving you. when you see that converging, that means there is less and less pay-off for owning the stock. wellpoint broke down below its 50-day moving average, plunging lower. fitzpatrick thinks the shareholders got nervous and slammed this one. they are worried about the lack of upside, just like unh, he says this should be sold, sold, sold! especially as it approaches back its 50-day moving average. finally, fitzpatrick thinks another one, humana is right for a big sell-off of a its latest pullback. the technicals are obviously telling us something, right? what we need to find out what we need to look at here is my sherlock holmes thing. you like that? okay. we need to find

sassi of wellpoint. sir, in your testimony, you state, quote, last year wellpoint received 380 million claims and processed 97% of them within 30 days. now, i'm looking at the arithmet arithmetic, and if the arithmetic is correct, it means you did not pay within 30 days over 11 million claims. would you tell the subcommittee what is the value in it dollars to wellpoint of the 11 million claims that were not paid in that time period? >> i -- chairman, i don't know the value of that. >> can you provide the subcommittee with such information? there has to be a way to calculate it. >> i'm not sure, because that is at a point in time. the vast majority of those claims, most likely were paid at a future point, either on the 31st day, or if we had requested additional information that was provided and then subs kwoently paid. >> maybe then you could chart out, 30 days, 60, 90 -- businesses operate that way, of course, 120. and if you could provide us information with what was the average cost of each claim that

. >> i have wellpoint. they will benefit from increasing roles from healthcare. they have a good records management program add they are cheap. >> i would wait for the debate to play out. david: you like disk drives? >> they recently upped the outlook. david: mike, she got a stock back in march that has popped 130%. >> in this case i think she is wrong. i like western digital. i think they have the technical advantage. host: you like a chemi

last year, wellpoint received 380 million claims, and we processed 97% of those in 30 days. subcommittee's letter asked for some information on deferral of claims. i should note that we do not defer claims. what happens sometimes is that claims are pending as we await additional information or conduct additional reviews. some common reasons for pending claims are that premiums have not been paid, that the claim is incomplete, such as missing diagnosis codes, or when members have health coverage -- other health coverage ma may be primary. the subcommittee's letter also asked about administrative costs. our administrative costs include a variety of initiatives designed to promote the health and well-being of our members. for instance, wellpoint employees, thousands of health professionals, including nurses, dieticians, social workers and pharmacists, among others. these professionals speak with thousands of members each day, encouraging them to learn more about their conditions, and how they can better manage their care. our health professionals help members schedule necessari

if the president wins, aetna loses, wellpoint wins. here's one from drew. boo-yah, jim.atching the show when you were discussing select medical holdings, sem. i saw this morning that it was trading at $9.96 and they missed their estimated range. do you still consider it an ipo to get into. a lot of people hate this company. if you get it under 10 and hold it about a month, i think you make 10%. but be in a-1 and the select med. a-1 you made 50%. you can offset with a loss in select med and that's fine. you can cut your losses there if you want to. i do think the stock is a buy. this one is from steve in florida. put down the cheap scotch, get off the cold linoleum floor and don't apologize for your recommendation of nly. if only i had listened to you about fiezer. thank you so much. there are very few stock i've been trashed as hard for recommending. after a while it got to me. i kind of lost it and apologized for it and said listen, i screwed up. the yield is intact. sometimes i can't take the pain. i'm a pretty big seasoned pain taker but that one got to me. here's dav

that's one of the reasons i prefer wellpoint. only 10% of its earnings from medicare advantage to, say, unh, which gets between a quarter and a third of its earnings from the government. flu cases cost these outfits big money. people aren't talking about that. and the more reliant on medicare a company is, the more pain it could be in for. i think you've really got to avoid the things that i see people trading up to, the speculative biotech names that have shot up 300%, 500%, 1,000% based on swine flu. they don't even have any proven products. i used to trade biochris, they haven't made any money. novavax. these have soared not because of swine flu but swine flu hype. so who do i think is the swine flu winner? gilead, gild. biotech stock i've owned for a long time in my charitable trust. it gets 80% of its sales from its fabulous hiv franchise. that's not on the line here. but it also earns royalties on the sales of tamiflu. which swine flu has only been resistant to in rare cases. this one's it. tamiflu royalties are reported on

last year, wellpoint received 380 million claims, and we processed 97% of those in 30 days.e subcommittee's letter asked for some information on deferral of claims. i should note that we do not defer claims. what happens sometimes is that claims are pending as we await additional information or conduct additional reviews. some common reasons for pending claims are that premiums have not been paid, that the claim is incomplete, such as missing diagnosis codes, or when members have health coverage -- other health coverage ma may be primary. the subcommittee's letter also asked about administrative costs. our administrative costs include a variety of initiatives designed to promote the health and well-being of our members. for instance, wellpoint employees, thousands of health professionals, including nurses, dieticians, social workers and pharmacists, among others. these professionals speak with thousands of members each day, encouraging them to learn more about their conditions, and how they can better manage their care. our health professionals help members schedule necessar

we are down double digits, not just united, wellpoint, very heavy leveraged to medicaid, aetna, medco, pharmacy managers. they are not down as much because the impact is not perceived as great as the hmos. the key story about today is if you in a sector with positive comments you are moving to the upside. walgreens is moving to the upside. they have restructures, nice savings in the fourth quarter. on restructuring, cost cutting. same with newspaper stocks ganett, cost cutting, lower newsprint expenses. the advertising market, no big upturn. brian, you still can't get the nasdaq in positive territory. >> i keep trying to lift up the market and i just can't do it. we are down .1%. i'm tired of seeing red. let's talk about green for starters. research in motion, when the earnings came up investors said buy the dips it is happening today. it is still a bid nonetheless. for-profit education, two companies outperformed at open hy heimer capella and strayer and apollo. wynn up 3.4%. cramer liked them. we have a lot of short interest in this stock so perhaps we have a lot of covering going o

you can pick blue cross & blue shield, aetna, wellpoint, you can pick under my proposal a cooperative plan not run by the insurance industry at all, not for profit competitor, not run by the government either. people would be presented with a series of choices. >> senator, wouldn't we see insurance companies pey ies com against one another? they've been known not to compete in each other's backyard. how can you be honest to the american people that they with wail be honest brokers? >> i don't think you can count of them being honest brokers. that's why i think it's critically important you do inject a not for profit competitor up against the for-profit insurance companies. >> well, there's four out of five bills that have the public option. is it still a possibility? you're outgunned. the polls are showing the people want a public, government-run option here. >> you know, anything is possible here because this is the beginning of a legislative process. you know, we're going to have chances to amend in the committee, on the floor, in the conference committee, so there are going to be l

for the next wellpoint five years, thanks to senator-a daschle, there were brief.e get people's attention. you could not imagine a harder audience than a roomful of united states senators that have 15 things on their minds and so forth. over the years, i made them longer, in the tradition of the senate, you needed a few more words got up to 450 words. over the last 12 years, i have written them myself. i was the guy that was or to stand up and speak them so you had to have your own pacing and tempo. i read over 300 of them and then we put 200 of them together in the book. >> you were thinking of yourself when you wrote this one. this was from 1921-1940, senate sacks sergeant at arms. the fire the sergeant at arms do you remember that story? >> he was a long time washington reporter. he took on the job as a sergeant at arms lay in his career. -- late in his career. he had to help with the inauguration in 1933. several senators died at the time he had to take care of their funerals. he did an interview with a journal about what he has seen over his long service in th

united, wellpoint and coventry are a few. >>> breakfast at tiffanies may get a little bit cheaper. rents are down 8% on fifth avenue the world's most expensive shopping street. rents $1,700 a square foot. that is not so bad. the company tracks 274 top shopping strips on earth and found the average rent was down 23%. the biggest loser was dublin's grafton street, down 23%, the biggest gainer, sorry to the german speakers, munich kafinkerstrasser. abcnews.com reporting moammar qaddafi's tent is being pitched in new york. we will see if the libyan leader's tent is in bedford, new york. time for "closing bell." >>> 3,000 laid off gm workers will go back to work as the company adds shifts. "the wall street journal" say authors will ask for a delay. random house sold 2 million copies in its first week. i'm mike huckman. >>> there is a live picture of the floor of the new york stock exchange. we have a rally underway. the market once again back in action on the upside. stocks approaching one-year highs. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo. we have a rally underway led by fi

once again today we see wellpoint on the downside and they have probably dropped about 15% in the last week and a half. same situation in all the other big names like aetna, all slowly moving down. until we get some certainty, the instinct is to sell them. there is positive news. in newspapers and drugstore companies. you've got gannett up nicely today. they had positive comments. they raised their guidance. news print costs are dropping. gannett has been moving to the upside and all the newspapers. the drugstore companies have been moving as well. brian shactman, we still can't get in positive territory on the nasdaq. >> we're down. i want to start with goggle. their official company blog talking about google wave. it's supposed to put e-mail, instant messaging, document management, social network all into one package. the news is they're going to expand their testing. it's not ready to launch, but they're inviting a bunch of programmers and developers to expand the testing. research in motion finally getting a bid. just crushed, it was basically down 20% in three days' time. up 2.4%.

drang, the hmo index has outperformed the broader market, led by cigna, up 67%, humana up 47% and wellpoint, up 37%. and the real standouts have been hospitals. tenent health care is one of the biggest winners. the laggards have been the sectors least under the microscope during the debate, pharma and biotech. both sectors underperforming the overall market. if the market is any indicator, the investors are betting a public option plan won't come to past, at least not in a way that impairs observers. denn dennis? >> it's pretty much a crap shoot, guys. ben, do you have an investment that you would recommend that we buy, regardless of whether obama care succeeds or fails? >> well, tava, we think is a great stock. generic cost control. great opportunities, as patents come off expiration. we think it's a buy here no matter what happens. joel, do you have a recommendation regardless of whether obama care passes? >> i'm really a real estate guy so i don't have a specific stock to invest in, but when you look at the press markets undervalued right now, it's definitely real estate. so my play woul

health net up 3%, united health group, 2.7%, wellpoint, 1.7%, aetna, 1. %. baucus himself not aware of the provisions in his own bill. >> americans to date simply cannot afford quality health insurance. that's why it's time to act. and that's why this is our moment in history. this is our chance to reform health care in america. our mark ensures choice. so every american can find quality, affordable coverage that cannot be taken away. >> taken away? the price will be taken out of your paycheck. time now to call on our own howard fineman, senior washington correspondent for "newsweek" magazine. howard, good evening. >> hi, keith. >> individual mandates, no public option, squeeze the middle class, cost them more for health care than they're paying now, did he kill off reform or his own political career today? >> well, they're mad at him in the senate at the highest levels of the democratic leadership for a couple of reasons. first of all, they gave him a lot a lot of time on to get republican support. i'm told that this bill such as it is baucus unveiled two m

in front of wellpoint, aetna and big insurance companies.i think the president needs to say let's get this bill going. let's take real votes. then in the end, ed, i think what's going to happen. in the senate, co-op is dead. i don't think we're going to see the co-op get. let it rest in peace. nancy pelosi passes 234 the house. then we have a public option and triggered public option. people in montana are going to ask max baucus, why in the world do some states and options and montana and north dakotas don't? >> refreshing view. you say the co-op isn't going to happen. we're down to the public option and trigger option. is that when the president is going to engage when we go to conference? >> we have the democratic party in one room, top leaders. i think it's showtime for them about where they stand with the american people. >> what if the president doesn't engage as far as -- and start demanding public option? what would your response be to that? >> what we're doing now. we're going out. this not a spectator sport making change. you have

about the particular parts of medicare that benefit aetna, and if the president wins, et ma loses, wellpointrew. i was watching your show the other day when you were discussing select medical holdings, sem, as a solid ipo to invest in. i saw this morning that it was trading at $9.96 and they missed their range. do you still consider it a good ipo to go into, or are their underlying factors? >> i think you hold it for about a month, i think you have made 10%. i have to tell you, the way the ipo game is, being the a-one and select medicine, the a-one you made 50%. you can ring the register on a-1, and you offset with a 4%, 5% loss. i felt select med should have popped, and it didn't. i don't want to turn it from a trade to investment. you can cut your losses there if you want to. i do think the stocks will pop. this one is from steve in florida. jim, put down the cheap scotch, get off the cold lynn oel numb floor and don't apologize for your recommendation of mly, annaly capital management. the massive dividend and drip strategy has brought nly through the crisis. if only i had listened to you

but look back at the wellpoint ceo angela brailly said last week.f you look at the premiums they collect, only 3 cents go to health insurer profit. the remainder goes to actual care. so there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty surrounding what this entire plan is. but i kind of agree with what jim is saying. the opportunity just might be in shorting these names. >> right. in the options market a lot of these managed care companies the vols are high so -- >> people are playing both directions. right now the anticipation of the street is they just don't know so because of that they're buying calls, buying puts, they're willing to pay up for the premium, they think either way there's going to be a distinct move. >> quick programming note here. cnbc will cover obama as dress to congress from all angles leading in way special edition of the kudlow report with five senators from across the nation including senator grassley and sfoern gregg. coverage begins at 7:00 on cnbc. time for today's edition of "pops and drops." drop for palm. it was down 9% on th

wellpoint up 3%, politicians continue to protect the goose that lays the golden egg for the health insurers which is no competition for the vast majority of us to bring real market forces against those businesses as every other business in this country has to deal with. senator ron wyden rejoins the conversation. you believe you have a solution to unleash the forces of competition, senator. how do you get it done? >> we get it done by saying look. at every rally, i'm sure the president will use it over the course of the next few days, he looks at the crowd and says you should get the same deal as your member of congress. that is, almost a verbatim quote at these rallies. the fact is, the bills that are being written here on capitol hill, not only don't give people choices like members of congress, they don't give any choices at all. by law they are going to be barred from holding insurance companies accountable. >> why do you -- why are people in washington, d.c. so terrified to unleash the natural forces of competition in health insurance as in every other major industry to tremendous succ

. >> congressman, i can answer that for my company wellpointe, several years we embarked on a journey to increase the transparency so that consumers more easily compare the prices of commonly-used services within their geographic area, because you are right. there is a large disparity between an mri in one part of the city and another part of the city and a cost for commonly knee replacements in one part of the city versus others, so we created anthem care compare which is a website to analyze the top 40 elective type procedures and a member can go into the website and type in the zip code and it will identify different providers in the area and the costs associated that would be charged by the different facilities for those areas, plus we try and tie in as much quality, public quality available information available to the members so that if you are considering having your knee replaced at a certain facility, and how often do they do that procedure and what are the success race and the readmission rate for that. we have rold have rolled it outf the markets across the country and now

it's not like the government is going to compete to make more profits than blue cross or wellpoint.t is the government will be there offering a choice that -- >> if there is a public option eventually the public option will dominate. even -- even congressman frank said a public auction will lead to a single payer system. that is this idea somehow it isn't going to do that. i don't think it flies. most americans have already figured that out. >> but mr. jordan of is on the board several years of a public program in the state i live and it was administered by a private insurance company and so, you know, and they know how to administer claims and that is definitely its own heart and skill and as the consumer rap on the board i would ask questions why do we have so many denials of pre-authorization for example for mental health services? that turned out to be one of the biggest services any of our patients used even though that wasn't the major diagnosis it was stressful to be sick people need help. one of our leading sources of complaints had to do with denial for mental health servic

. >> it is so much in the headlines but wellpoint has market cap. >> no one is arguing for j.only women who run for profit businesses. oprah is a chairman. >> she gets in on that, in terms of pure power you can make that argument -- where is martha? what happened? >> look at her market cap? it's very, very -- >> she has a tv show. >> she is. we had her on the list for a long time. >> is there an argument about this? >> she would argue. martha like to be on the list. >> she should be. >> martha is very powerful. some of the newcomers on the bottom of the list this year. the woman that builtboro bravo, nbc universal, the whole women's thing that's growing, bonnie hammer, another nbc universal. in fact, nbc universal may have more women -- is this why you have me on? >> no. we had you on before we knew that. meredith whitney is joining us today, too. she's number 39 on the list. how do you measure up and look at meredith for all these things, too. >> number 39. >> meredith is another woman we argue about. is she more powerful than a ceo. meredith moves markets. meredith made her

it is in two states and covers 500,000 people per the largest health-insurance, wellpoint, covers 33 million people. the strategy would result in large plans to compete with these large for-profit insurers, i think that is medical. i am not the only one who thinks it -- think so. senator rockefeller has engaged in extensive study in this issue. and everything that he has learned from people in cooperatives today, this is not something that would be able to stand up to the large insurance companies. even if you put aside a very low prospects, cooperatives have frequent problems. they are not going to be -- be able to create the will not be able to be created on the national basis. they simply are not going to be able to be adept -- to be able to adapt it types of reforms that are necessary. and most importantly, and this is really the center of the argument for a new public insurance plan, they are simply not going to be able offer competitive alternatives to private plans, a benchmark that will press private plans to improve their performance over time. there will not be a benchmark

for the next wellpoint five years, thanks to senator daschle, there were brief. we get people's attention. you could not imagine a harder audience than a roomful of united states senators that have 15 things on their minds and so forth. over the years, i made them longer, in the tradition of the senate, you needed a few more words and we got up to 450 words. over the last 12 years, i have written them myself. i was the guy that was or to stand up and speak them so you had to have your own pacing and tempo. i read over 300 of them and then we put 200 of them together in the book. >> you were thinking of yourself when you wrote this one. this was from 1921-1940, senate sacks sergeant at arms. the fire the sergeant at arms do you remember that story? >> he was a long time washington reporter. he took on the job as a sergeant at arms late in his career. he had to help with the inauguration in 1933. several senators died at the time he had to take care of their funerals. he did an interview with a journal about what he has seen over his long service in the senate, 30-

hispanics wellpoint one. that was african-american hispanics and then you see the rest. to the electorate is beginning to shift and if you overlay that with what mario said earlier, what you see is in the fute, the electorate will be changing fast. so ianted to show you how obama one. and if you can see that, the bottom is the white though, how it is split between mccain and obama. the second, the agreement is the african-american. the purple one is asian pacific, and the red one is hispanics so you can see how this changes demographics. some have argued that to win elections in the future, republicans are going to have to compete in the ethnic community. because otherwise, and especially in certain states they will be out of reach. this is the growth of the hispanic electorate. the bottom one is the actual vote. so in 2008, you had about 9.7 million hispanics voting. the orange is the number of registered. you h about 12 million hispanics registered to vote. and citize voting age at about 18.5 million. for hispanics, you know, between registration and potential registra