Dendreon (DNDN - option chain) stock is trading lower today after Medicare administrators said they will take a full year to determine whether the government should cover DNDN's expensive prostate cancer treatment Provenge. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on DNDN, which will give us a chance to make money on DNDN while this decision remains pending.

This morning, DNDN opened at $28.18. So far today the stock has hit a high of $29.76 and a low of $28.01. As of 12:10, DNDN is trading at $28.87, down $3.46 (-10.7%). The chart for DNDN looks bearish.

Shares of CardioNet (BEAT) were punished Monday morning after an unfavorable decision from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The administrative group proposed that the reimbursement rates on the technical component of mobile cardiovascular telemetry should stay carrier-priced for 2011, defying CardioNet's wishes to obtain a national reimbursement rate for the technology.

Now, CardioNet will attempt to lobby CMS during the public comment period prior to the final ruling, which is due by Nov. 1. "We will work diligently during the public comments period to request that CMS change its recommendation to one that is more beneficial to Medicare recipients who depend on" devices containing CardioNet's technology, explained CEO Joe Capper.

President Obama plans to hold a health care summit to try and piece back together fractured health care legislation. He is expected to announce that it would include denying or rolling back unwarranted increases by health insurance companies.

Here are some key points to his proposal:

• Most Americans would buy health insurance with federal subsidies to help them afford premiums.
• It would bar insurance companies from denying coverage to people with medical problems or charging them more.

It's been overlooked -- it's received scant coverage by the popular press -- but it's worth repeating: one benefit of the health care reform legislation will be enhanced employee mobility.

Don't misunderstand: a bill that prohibits discrimination by insurance companies due to medical condition/history, provides substantial subsidies for those who don't have health insurance from their employer, and that also offers much-needed tax breaks for small businesses who do provide coverage, is a major accomplishment. It's big change and it's big news. If the health care reform bill passes, it would be the biggest social policy advance by the United States since the passage of Medicare in 1965, and it would rank third behind the latter and the establishment of Social Security in 1935 in terms of social safety net significance.

The U.S. Senate voted along party lines, 60 to 39, to proceed with debate on health care reform.

The last two holdouts, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana decided to finally vote with the majority.

Details of the bill are sketchy at this point. The Senate version would require most everyone to purchase health care. Coverage would be extended to an additional 30 million persons. Coverage could not be denied for preexisting conditions.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada and Senate Majority Leader, is weighing increasing the Medicare payroll tax by 0.4 to 0.5 percentage point, as a way to help fund universal health care, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday (subscription required.)

The current employee share of the Medicare tax is 1.45%. Reid's proposal would apply to only those earning more than $250,000 per year, which would conform to President Obama's campaign promise to not raise taxes on individuals earning under $250,000 per year, CNN.com reported Thursday.

Health care reform's long and winding road continues, as debate will begin soon on several bills in the House and Senate. Each chamber is likely to approve a bill, with the all-important conference committee set to reconcile the two after each chamber's vote.

Let's put on the old political science hat for a moment to see if history and research can tell us anything about the likely shape of the health care reform bill at this stage of the U.S. public policy process.

The House, Senate, and conference committee (CC) outcomes are labeled: Probable, Possible, Doubtful.

After discussing the status of health care with my three trusted economist friends and one equally-trusted public policy colleague, here is their employment advice for if health care reform doesn't pass and rein-in health care costs.

If health care reform doesn't pass, those citizens capable of doing so should consider becoming doctors, nurses, radiologists, surgical specialists, hospital technical support staff etc. -- i.e. consider almost any job/position in or affiliated with health care.

"Capital," Maxwell Emery (Hume Cronyn) said in the finance film Rollover (1981), "has a life of its own."

The market absolutists and conservatives who oppose health care reform are going to find out just how much havoc that capital force can generate in the years ahead, as it relates to health care costs.

Today was one of those days that was going to start out soft, but a key analyst upgrade saved the day. There was actually no early economic data, and traders are putting on their pre-earnings trades. Here is a quick look at the earnings previews for this week's key technology stocks and for this week's key financial stocks.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,313.92 +167.40 (2.05%)
S&P 500 901.05 +21.92 (2.49%)
Nasdaq 1,793.21 +37.18 (2.12%)

Top Analyst Calls

When my son had a huge boil under his arm, it turned out that it was filled with the killer staph, MRSA. It also turns out that my (otherwise) great doctor used a traditional lab to process the test, which took a week to determine it was MRSA.

Cepheid (NASDAQ: CPHD) manufactures the equipment and test that takes just two hours to do the same thing -- and is better and cheaper than traditional tests. CPHD wins 90%-plus of all competitive bids and its test could be available in low-tech facilities, such as doctor's offices or nursing homes, next year.

The big catalyst for this stock, however, is that Medicare will stop paying for all hospital-acquired infections except MRSA in October. So institutions need a quick test if they are going to be reimbursed for treatment.

The stock has fallen from $30 to under $9. It's worth $20 - $22 to an acquirer.

Your best strategy for life-changing profits?

Buy the call options.

Next: Biotech Stock #4

Humana (NYSE: HUM - option chain) stock is declining today after the company said preliminary 2010 Medicare Advantage payment rates could cause reduced profits in 2010. These comments from HUM are dragging down the entire group, including industry stalwart UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), which is off by upwards of 15%. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on HUM.

This morning, HUM opened at $36.70. So far today the stock has hit a low of $30.57 and a high of $36.86. As of 11:55, HUM is trading at $31.41, down $9.13 (-22.5%). Prior to today, the chart for HUM looked bullish, while S&P gives HUM a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy ranking.

Wellpoint (NYSE: WLP - option chain) stock is dropping today after the company announced it will suspend marketing of its Medicare plans for seniors while it corrects a number of compliance problems. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on WLP.

This morning, WLP opened at $37.40. So far today the stock has hit a low of $36.77 and a high of $39.45. As of 12:25, WLP is trading at $38.74, down $2.22 (-5.4%). The chart for WLP looks neutral and S&P gives WLP a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a March bear-call credit spread above the $50 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverages nice returns.

For this particular trade, we will make a 6.4% return in two months as long as WLP is below $50 at March expiration. Wellpoint would have to rise by more than 28% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

WLP hasn't been above $50 since September and shown resistance around $45 recently.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in WLP.

In this series, we take a look at the 25 stocks on the S&P 500 Index (SPX) that have turned in the worst performance during the past decade -- what went wrong, and what happens next.

Former hippies might notice that the ticker symbol for Tenet Healthcare Corporation (NYSE: THC) is also the acronym for the active compound in marijuana, but this apparent inattention to detail is likely the least of the company's concerns. When Tenet was formed in 1995, it was born out of a merger between American Medical International and scandal-plagued National Medical Enterprises. Executives at the newly reborn healthcare services company hoped that its new name would help erase any unpleasant investor associations with its previous incarnation.

What went wrong? At number 19 on our list of SPX losers, THC shed 73% of its value during the 10-year period ending June 30, 2008. Prior to a stomach-churning sell-off in the fall of 2002, the shares were entrenched in a near-vertical uptrend that peaked at $52.50. It seems that a seedy healthcare services company by any other name ...

October 2002 marked the stock's peak, as well as the beginning of its steep descent. First, the company reported fiscal first-quarter earnings that surpassed analysts' estimates by 2 cents per share. A few weeks later, Tenet was named co-defendant in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a man who'd accepted an artificial heart, which she alleged "stripped him of his human dignity." This relatively minor suit, worth just $100,000, wouldn't break THC -- but it nonetheless heralded the beginning of the end. Toward the end of the month, the shares tumbled sharply after an analyst downgraded Tenet and warned that it was too dependent on Medicare reimbursements from the government.

Baby Boomers, in some cases already facing the 'double demands' of caring for kids and aging parents, have another economic concern, at least for the next phase of the housing cycle: substantially lower household net worth, as a result of declining home prices, so says a Washington-based think tank.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research says the median households head by those ages 45-54 in 2009 will have about 25% less wealth than the similar demographic in 2004. In dollars, household wealth will decline to $113,268 from $150,113.

Further, the above assume March 2008's housing prices hold for 2009: if they don't and prices fall another 10%, household net worth declines by about 35%; 20%, by about 45%, the CEPR said.

Economist Peter Dawson, who is not affiliated with the CEPR or the study, told BloggingStocks part of the problem was "unreasonable expectations regarding home appreciation rates, the belief that 10-15% real estate gains would continue for decades. It got too many adults out of the traditional saving and investing mode and into thinking their home would serve as a major return on investment." Most homes do appreciate, and they can help build wealth, Dawson said, but homeowners must think in terms of a 6-9% average, annual appreciation rate, "which is a more-realistic return for residential dwellings."