Authors Dan O'Neill

7 days 30 days All time Recent Popular
Whatever the other merits of this proposal, funneling another ~$30B to hospitals is the antithesis of "targeted relief."

A dozen hospital chains just presented at #JPM21, two weeks ago.

General theme: Financially speaking, hospitals are doing quite well. 1/n


We have, for example, Community Health Systems, which operates 89 hospitals in 16 states, many of them in smaller towns / metro areas.

Through the pandemic, CHS's EBITDA margin never even fell into single digits, and profitability actually *increased* in 2020.


Meanwhile, Lifepoint Health (84 hospitals, 30 states) also saw profits increase in 2020, while its cash-to-debt ratio fell. Pretty solid year.


ProMedica Health (non-profit, 13 Midwestern hospitals) actually saw profits increase even in *the first half of 2020,* when hospitals were supposedly facing catastrophe.

They finished the year with ~$440M of EBITDA, and $2.3B of cash on hand.


Baylor Scott & White (52 hospitals) saw its profit margin *more than double* during the pandemic year, and ended September with $7.8 billion of cash and portfolio investments.

That's about $600M more than they had pre-pandemic.