Over the past 20 years, medical device giant Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG) has substantially outperformed the market. While the company's stock is currently struggling partly due to coronavirus-related headwinds, there are still excellent reasons to be optimistic about its future. In fact, over the next couple of decades, Intuitive Surgical has a shot at becoming the largest healthcare stock. Let me explain.

Currently, the two largest healthcare companies are pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, with a market cap of $433 billion, and insurance specialist UnitedHealth Group, whose market cap is $475 billion. The list includes other pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly at $295 billion and Pfizer at $247 billion. Intuitive Surgical looks relatively small compared to these giants, with a market cap of "only" $66 billion.

But comparing the performance of all these healthcare stocks over the past two decades is instructive. For good measure, let's add the S&P 500 and the Health Care Select Sector SPDR, an industry benchmark.

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Source Fool.com