The market tanks on health care

Or not.

Fox Business

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 43.91 points, or 0.41%, to 10785.89, the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 5.91 points, or 0.51%, to 1165.81 and the Nasdaq Composite picked up 20.99 points, or 0.88%, to 2395.40. The FOX 50 added 3.04 points, or 0.36%, to 843.19.

Like the bill or not, Wall Street closed at its highest level since Oct. 2008 on Monday as the House’s historic health-care vote removed a huge cloud of uncertainty that had been hanging over the markets.

Media Matters

This doesn't pass the smell test. Because is Fox Business, along with its Wall St. sources, really claiming that stocks rose on Monday regardless of what investors thought about the historic passage of health care reform? Are they really suggesting that if investors, as well as big business and corporate America, hated health care reform that stocks still would have gone up simply because everyone was happy with "clarity"; with closure?

I don't buy it. If big business actually thought reform was going to cripple the economy and was the first step towards socialism, which is what some Fox News pundits have been claiming, then the market would have cratered 300 or 400 points. Easy.

If the bill was really a "disaster" for business, as CNBC's Jim Cramer claimed last week, the markets would have responded an in obvious manner. Instead, the Dow went up.