UnitedHealth marketplace losses drag down healthcare stocks on Wall Street
The insurer's announcement boosted worries about the sustainability of the marketplaces.
A selloff of UnitedHealth Group stock on Friday pushed other major healthcare stocks lower following the insurer's warning that it may exit the Obamacare marketplace exchange business.
The S&P 500 healthcare sector was down 1.7 percent Thursday.
[Also: UnitedHealth Group may withdraw from Obamacare exchanges over losses]
UnitedHealth's announcement boosted worries about the sustainability of the marketplaces, according to the Wall Street Journal.
UnitedHealth was down 5.6 percent; Aetna, Anthem and Cigna were down 7.4, 6.7 and 5 percent, respectively. Hospitals reported an off day, with Community Health Systems down 9.1 percent; Tenet Healthcare off 8.5 percent; and HCA Holdings down 6.1 percent.
In a statement Thursday, UnitedHealth revised its 2015 earnings outlook downward and said it was, "evaluating the viability of the insurance exchange product segment and will determine during the first half of 2016 to what extent it can continue to serve the public exchange markets in 2017."
Other insurers have been sounding alarms in their third-quarter earnings about their exchange businesses, illustrating that the health law has become a broader issue of the industry, WSJ said.
Twitter: @SusanJMorse
