Oppenheimer's Michael Wiederhorn (Track Record & Ratings) is one of the best-ranked healthcare analysts for 2018. He is currently tracking an impressive 72 percent success rate and 17 percent average return per rating. On his buy list? Centene Corp. The company is a multi-line healthcare enterprise that provides services to government healthcare programs.

According to Wiederhorn, Centene stands to benefit from growing demand for Medicaid managed care, as states are increasingly outsourcing traditional Medicaid and higher acute populations to managed care.

"Following its Health Net acquisition and now with its acquisition of Fidelis, Centene should benefit from multi-year synergy opportunities and further expand its Medicare Advantage presence" writes the analyst.

And with a 'significant' margin opportunity' ahead, Wiederhorn concludes: "We believe Centene will continue to boast strong revenue and earnings growth prospects for years to come." He reiterated his buy rating on October 24 while boosting his price target from $158 to $165 (16 percent upside potential).

Also in the stock's favor comes a bullish move by Leerink Partners. Five-star analyst Ana Gupte upgraded CNC on October 24. She also ramped up her price target from $130 to $155 citing "the blessing of consensus 2019E EPS on the Q3 commentary." She now sees revenues potentially surpassing the $69B mark.

In fact, all seven analysts covering this 'strong buy' stock are bullish. This is with an average analyst price target of $162 (14 percent upside potential).