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Biotech / Medical : Oxford Health Plan (OXHP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: men mailman who wrote (1118)	2/24/1998 10:46:00 PM
From: Raptor	Respond to of 2068

While the mailman's diatribe may seem a bit extreme, the heart of his argument is correct. The financial results announced today are stunning, staggering. No superlative can overstate the case. An insurance company can't be sure of its real earnings until well after the results are set, in effect, by the price of the policy vs. the future unknown costs to be incurred. Earnings in the short run are merely estimates of what the future may be. Insurance company managements have unusual leeway in being either aggressive or conservative in their assumptions. The results announced by Oxford today reveal that the whole thing has been a sham. Period. The whole time. Sure sure, they have a franchise, a network, a name, and thousands of people receive health care from the company. Great. But the whole thing has been perpetrated on a false notion: that the company was charging high enough premiums to earn a decent return on capital. Well, well, now we see how Oxford grew so darn fast. They underpriced their product. The charge taken today wipes out the ENTIRE COMPANY EARNINGS OVER THE LAST FOUR YEARS! THE COMPANY NEVER MADE ANY MONEY. Nice talking to ya. You or I could make a business grow if we could undercut our competitors on a price/ value proposition, especially if we could fib a little about how much we were losing, raise more equity capital, grow some more, and then sell a bunch of stock before fessing up to reality. So the question is, is Wiggins really smart or really dumb?? I guess mailman thinks Wiggins is smart and doesn't want him to get away with it. I can feel his pain. There is perhaps a 50-50 chance that Wiggins will go to jail, IMO. There will be investigations about who knew what and when, and I believe statements the company made back in April and May about the process of fixing the computer systems were false and known to be at the time. These guys lied through their teeth. I don't want to get worked up about it, but some of us who were short last April and May were incredulous at the time that things could be fixed so fast. Time will tell, but I believe Wiggins' lawyers will be getting a vigorous workout. As to the financing today, wow. Just wow. Is it true that the conversion price on the equity investment can be reset lower up to a year or more from now, if the stock price is lower?? This is extortion money, pure and simple. A loan shark would be hard pressed to get better terms. Good luck to all, but here, the short side remains the right side. As for you, Dr. Risk, the name says it all. By the way, just a reminder, when six market makers are "loading up on the buy side" or whatever you said, it is meaningless and shameful hype. It only means that at least six people are interested in buying the stock, and the broker is usually not buying for themselves, but for some unknown client. I'd bet there are just as many on the sell side, but since buying and selling goes on all day every day, nobody really pays much attention to which brokers are executing the trades. Have a nice evening.

To: men mailman who wrote (1118)	2/25/1998 7:40:00 AM
From: Premier	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2068

mailman alias valuefinder: I understand your gripe against Oxford, Wiggins & Co. You should understand that you arrive at faulty investment decisions based on incorrect assumptions. I had advised you in a prior post that you should not touch this stock over $13.75 based on your own calculations. But you reiterated that KKR were not dumb and therefore you were willing to buy at $21. You make mistakes in your judgement and blame it on others. I agree with your diatribe against Wiggins. As an investor, though, you cannot invest based on historical perspective alone. It would be like driving a car while looking in rear view mirror only. I do not know if preferred stock is redeemable. But I do know that TP will pay Oxford 17.75 per share when warrants are exercised. What do you think will happen to this cash? Do you think this cash will be used to fund future negative cash flows from operations? Payson & Co. has already announced that next quarter will also be loss. My interest in the Co. is that of a non material investor. I have invested ( you call it daytrade) in it based on my perception that the stock will go up in future. I am fairly flexible. When I judge the outcome to be different I will change my direction. You talk about shareholder union. Collectively, SI participants may account for less than .5% shareholding, perhaps 10% of those shareholders may join your union. Even if you become Sadam Hussain of such a frail union, I doubt that you will accomplish much in your life. Please grow up. Premier