In 2006, the United States spent about $2.1 trillion on health care. With an aging population that's increasing in number, and escalating costs of medical care and technology, that figure is expected to grow 6.7% annually to reach $4.3 trillion in 2017.

With that in mind, I used our new CAPS screening tool to find out which health-care stocks the CAPS investing community is the most bullish on.

These stocks also have:

  • Market caps greater than $1 billion.
  • Five-star ratings, the highest possible, from our CAPS community.

Remember, in the first year for which we have data, five-star companies outperformed with an average gain of nearly 28%.

Company

Share Price

Market Cap
(in billions)

Amedisys

$52.41

$1.4

China Medical (NASDAQ:CMED)

$39.30

$1.1

Genzyme (NASDAQ:GENZ)

$68.43

$18.3

Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD)

$53.87

$49.7

Hologic (NASDAQ:HOLX)

$22.09

$5.6

Johnson & Johnson

$66.15

$186.4

Meridian Bioscience

$29.28

$1.2

Mindray Medical (NYSE:MR)

$37.63

$4.0

Stryker (NYSE:SYK)

$62.30

$25.7

Teva Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ:TEVA)

$45.93

$35.6

Data from Motley Fool CAPS and Yahoo! Finance as of May 20.

Of course, true Fools know that it takes more than a screen to generate healthy returns. Come and join us on Motley Fool CAPS, where the collective wisdom of our 105,000-strong CAPS community can help you make your investment decisions.

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