Share tips: tuck into a slice of America's Medicaid pie

With Barack Obama favourite to be re-elected as American president in November, it’s likely his flagship healthcare reform bill will be implemented. This should prove a boon for health insurers such as this one, says Paul Hill.

According to William Hill, Barack Obama is the 2/5 red-hot favourite to be re-elected at the American presidential elections in November. So it's likely his flagship healthcare reform bill will be implemented, forcing up to 35 million more Americans to get medical insurance by 2014. Of these, 18 million are from low-income families and will automatically be enrolled for free under Obama's Medicaid programme. The rest will be privately funded by companies or individuals. This should prove a boon for health insurers such as Wellpoint.

Wellpoint is America's second-biggest player in this sector it has a turnover of $60bn and covers 33.5 million citizens across 14 states. Its scale and trusted Blue Cross/Blue Shield brands give it huge cost advantages over smaller competitors, especially when negotiating deals with large hospital chains.

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Paul gained a degree in electrical engineering and went on to qualify as a chartered management accountant. He has extensive corporate finance and investment experience and is a member of the Securities Institute.

Over the past 16 years Paul has held top-level financial management and M&A roles for blue-chip companies such as O2, GKN and Unilever. He is now director of his own capital investment and consultancy firm, PMH Capital Limited.

Paul is an expert at analysing companies in new, fast-growing markets, and is an extremely shrewd stock-picker.