4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: HealthSpring

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 140,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, small-cap health insurer HealthSpring (NYSE: HS  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at HealthSpring's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

HealthSpring facts

Headquarters (Founded)	Franklin, Tenn. (2000)
Market Cap	$721.5 million
Industry	Managed health care
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$2.4 billion
Management	Chairman/CEO Herbert Fritch (since September 2000) CFO Karey Witty (since July 2009)
Cash / Debt	$322.9 million / $251.3 million
Competitors	UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH  ) Aetna (NYSE: AET  )
CAPS Members Bullish on HS Also Bullish on	General Electric (NYSE: GE  ) Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ  )
CAPS Members Bearish on HS Also Bearish on	Humana (NYSE: HUM  ) Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF  )

Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 94% of the 203 members who have rated HealthSpring believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include shaileshnita and All-Star mrindependent, who is ranked in the top 2% of our community.

In late August, shaileshnita highlighted several of HealthSpring's cheapish metrics:

It is a health-care provider mainly for the government run programs. It has a very good valuation such as P/E (<10), P/S(<1), PEG (<1) and P/B(<1). … It has a decent Current Ratio of 2. If the proposal for health-care reform in USA succeeds then this company is likely to do very well.

In a pitch from five days ago, mrindependent expands on HealthSpring as a refreshing opportunity:

HealthSpring is selling for 0.87 times book value and 6.4 times earnings despite the fact that the company has a clean balance sheet and good short term prospects. The reason for the deep discount is concern over what healthcare reform might do to this company's model. Apparently, this company offers a managed care approach for people who are on Medicare. I think it is likely that the company will survive healthcare reform and will eventually soar. In the meantime, I suspect that the stock price will bounce up and down depending on the latest political gossip.

What do you think about HealthSpring, or any other stock for that matter? Make your voice heard on Motley Fool CAPS today. The CAPS community is waiting to hear your opinions. CAPS is 100% free, so get started!