by Jason Norris, CFA
Executive Vice President of Research
In the last few weeks we have received several questions regarding the headlines coming out of Washington that may have major implications to some sectors of the market (although none of the questions were regarding Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress).
The FCC issued a statement that they are going to enact Title II of the 1934 Telecom Act (yes, 1934) to apply to broadband internet. This basically would regulate internet access, as well as any deals companies may make to transmit data (i.e., if Netflix were to strike a deal with Comcast, this would have to be blessed by the FCC). We haven’t seen the specific details of the act since the actual 300 page order has not been released. I had the good fortune of meeting with top managers of Verizon, Comcast and Charter Communications earlier this week and they addressed the topic. While the carriers have not been engaging in practices the FCC is trying to stop, this new regulation will introduce increased uncertainty. Network service providers have essentially had an open playing field as to what to invest in based on market dynamics. This proposed increase in regulation may present a lot of obstacles and conjecture. The consensus view is that new regulation would have a negative impact on innovation and investment longer-term. Also, the issue would be heavily litigated as well. The belief is that net neutrality needs to come through Congress, not the FCC. The DC Court of Appeals has previously overturned the FCC’s attempt to regulate in 2010 and 2014.
The winners of this move will likely be companies that drive a lot of data over the internet, i.e. Netflix and Hulu. Google is a wild card because they drive a lot of data transmission (YouTube) and they are expanding into telecom services (Google Fiber). Thus Google will see both the positive and negative sides of this proposed regulation. Apparently, Google execs had mentioned to President Obama that they are against net neutrality. The potential losers of the act would be the cable and telecom companies and their equipment suppliers if capital spending is slowed. However, the market didn’t bat an eye due to the amount of guesswork remaining before any implementation occurs.
You Keep Me Hangin' On
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was before the Supreme Court again this week as challengers of the law asked the justices to find the subsidies (tax credits) the IRS is approving unconstitutional. The law states that only customers on a State-run exchange will get a tax credit; however, the IRS has been giving tax credits to all customers on both Federal and State exchanges. The majority of newly insured customers are on Federal exchanges and are receiving credits from the IRS, which would mean their insurance costs could increase meaningfully if this aspect of the ACA is overturned.
After the arguments were made on Wednesday, most legal analysts were unable to get a “read” from the justices on which way were they were leaning. The expectation is that the four “progressive” justices will vote in favor of the government, and the more “conservative” justices, Scalia, Thomas and Alito, will likely vote in favor of the plaintiff. The last challenge to the ACA was in 2012 where Chief Justice Roberts voted in favor of the act, so he could be the swing vote again. However, Justice Kennedy gave the defense a bit of hope due to his questioning of States’ Rights. The essential question is this: if the Federal government mandated the States to set up their exchanges to get its citizens subsidies, would that result in undue “coercion”? Thus maintaining the subsidies for the Federal exchanges may be allowed. It was an interesting line of questioning, and one that moved the HMO and hospital stocks this past week. The HMOs and hospitals will continue to be beneficiaries of the ACA due to the increased number of insured customers, but the HMOs will have less of a benefit since ACA policies dictate a lower profit margin.
Our Takeaways for the Week:
- Net neutrality will not be solved for some time due to the legal challenges at play
- The current dispute of the ACA presents possible winners and losers in the healthcare sector