With a market cap of $472 billion and tens of millions of people covered under its plans, UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) is the undisputed king of health insurance stocks. But over the last 12 months, its share price fell by 2%, badly lagging the market's comparative returns of 17%.

Is this healthcare titan tapped out as an investment opportunity, or just taking a breather? Let's investigate a couple of arguments in favor of each of those possibilities.

The bull thesis for UnitedHealth is quite simple: As long as people need healthcare in the U.S., they or their employers will need to buy health insurance every month. And as long as healthcare resources are both scarce and improving in quality over time, there will always be plenty of money to be made by both insuring people and then actually delivering care to them. And since UnitedHealth has two main segments -- one that offers health insurance and prescription coverage, and another that delivers healthcare -- it's already perfectly positioned to continue to do what it's doing for the benefit of its shareholders over the long term. 

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Source Fool.com