I would characterize it as a real growth industry. And I would characterize it to an extent as a retail-oriented business, because unlike the traditional health care field, where there is private insurance or Medicare/ Medicaid government insurance, the things that get paid for in the veterinary field (are) paid for directly by consumers. |
It shouldn't come as any surprise that ING is interested in buying the financial services and international business. I think the surprising thing is that Aetna would consider selling the financial services and international businesses because it generates a huge tax liability for them, whereas they could have done a deal two months ago that was tax positive. |
The timing and magnitude of this ($900 million) charge was a surprise. The fact that they are taking the charge now makes you wonder how far they would have (missed their mark) for the quarter. It really calls the quality of the earnings into question. |
There will be a lot of cheap VGA monitors out there for a long time. |
There's a very real chance that if we have aggressive regulation of this industry, or if we pass a bunch of unnecessary rules, that you will see health-care cost trends go back to the level that we saw 10 or 15 years ago. |