2 Healthcare Stocks for Beginner Investors With a 10-Year Time Horizon

Becoming a long-term investor is a smart strategy for building wealth, but it's not without its challenges, especially for those just starting out. Finding the right stocks for your investment portfolio takes time, patience, and research. You need to make sure you understand the fundamentals of the companies you want to buy, the long-term growth tailwinds for those businesses, and whether those elements fit into the overall risk preferences you have for your personal portfolio.

If you already know that you want to grow your investments in the healthcare space, there is a seemingly endless array of names to pick from. Let's say you have a 10-year time horizon and want to put cash to work in a basket of healthcare stocks. Here are two names to consider adding to your buy list right now.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Intuitive Surgical

Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG) is the established leader in robotic-assisted surgery thanks to the various generations of its da Vinci surgical system, which holds a dominant market position globally. The high cost of these systems and the extensive training required for surgeons to use them create significant switching costs for hospitals. This has consistently formed a wide economic moat that continues to shield the company from competitive impacts, despite the fact that the robotic-assisted surgery market is more fragmented now than a decade ago.

The initial sale of a da Vinci system is a major capital investment for healthcare providers that significantly contributes to Intuitive Surgical's revenue, but the company's real financial strength comes from the recurring revenue generated by the instruments and accessories used in every procedure as well as ongoing service contracts. These annuity-like revenue streams account for an even more notable portion of the company's top line than system sales.

Case in point: In the third quarter of 2025, Intuitive Surgical's revenue totaled $2.5 billion, up 23% from one year ago. Of that total, $1.5 billion was attributable to instruments and accessories revenue, $590 million to systems revenue, and $396 million to services revenue. The company's net income as measured on the basis of GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) jumped 24% year over year to $709 million, too.

The robotic-assisted surgery market is still underpenetrated relative to the total number of surgical procedures. However, with an aging global population and rising demand for minimally invasive procedures, there is a large and growing pool of potential procedures for Intuitive's systems. And as the company seeks regulatory approvals for new surgical applications, this also expands its total addressable market.

The company invests heavily in research and development to maintain its technological edge. Recent launches -- such as the da Vinci 5 system with enhanced artificial intelligence (AI) and advancements in its Ion endoluminal system for lung biopsies -- have showcased its commitment to innovation and solidified its market lead.

Intuitive Surgical's robust balance sheet -- with about $8.4 billion in cash and investments on hand at the end of the third quarter -- can also allow the company to invest in future growth and effectively manage potential market headwinds. If you're a long-term investor with a durable buy-and-hold time horizon, even if you're just starting to build your portfolio, Intuitive Surgical looks like a great stock.

2. GE HealthCare Technologies

GE HealthCare Technologies (NASDAQ: GEHC) produces a wide range of products including medical imaging equipment (for X-rays, ultrasounds, and MRIs), patient monitoring systems, diagnostic pharmaceuticals, and various methods for drug discovery and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The company was spun off from General Electric in 2023, a move that was intended to create a more-focused medical technology company and allow for greater agility and accelerated growth across its healthcare segments.

GE HealthCare is a fascinating example of a healthcare business that is actively integrating AI into its various products and processes for healthcare providers. For example, it's leveraging AI in its various medical-imaging products like MRIs to improve image quality, reduce scan times, and aid in diagnosis. Likewise, AI algorithms are embedded in its X-ray systems to automatically detect crucial findings for urgent-case prioritization.

The company is also developing healthcare-specific foundation models (large-scale AI trained on vast amounts of data) and exploring the use of agentic AI, which uses systems that can reason and act with human oversight.

GE Healthcare's Project Health Companion is one example. It's exploring the use of AI to provide physicians with the collective knowledge of a multidisciplinary care team to aid in clinical decision-making. The project aims to streamline complex patient cases by having specialized AI agents analyze data and generate treatment recommendations for review.

The company has demonstrated its financial resilience in 2025 despite margin pressures from tariffs, and it delivered strong third-quarter revenue growth of 6% year over year to $5.1 billion. Its pharmaceutical diagnostics segment was the fastest-growing in the quarter, with revenue increasing 20% compared to the same quarter in 2024.

GE HealthCare's Advanced Visualization segment, which includes the company's suite of software, platforms, and various AI applications, grew 7% from one year ago, while its imaging segment's revenue was up 5% year over year.

Even though its net income is being impacted by tariffs, GE Healthcare reported profits of $446 million for the three-month period. It also generated free cash flow of about $483 million in the quarter. Despite some short-term growth headwinds, if you're looking for a diversified healthcare stock with a wide moat and a long-term growth runway, GE Healthcare might just fit the bill.

Rachel Warren has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends GE HealthCare Technologies and Intuitive Surgical. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.