Shares of the major COVID vaccine makers fell on Monday, as the unprecedented wave of omicron infections eased, with new cases rapidly dropping across the country.
Three executives spoke on a Thursday call hosted by the American Hospital Association to detail how they're coping with surging costs for workers and supplies that are making losses worse than expected. They pleaded for additional federal funding, and for delays in implementing a scheduled 2 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements and a pause in Medicare money advanced earlier in the pandemic that's starting to be recouped. The AHA has requested an additional $25 billion and disbursement of the remaining money previously allotted.
Pfizer projects it will generate record-high revenue in 2022, saying Tuesday it expects to sell $32 billion of its COVID-19 shots and $22 billion of its antiviral coronavirus treatment pill Paxlovid this year.
HCA Healthcare Inc. sank as much as 8.1% on Thursday to the lowest since July as rising labor costs weighed on the hospital-industry bellwether's earnings and outlook. Other hospitals followed suit ahead of expected earnings reports next month.
Overall, hospital margins remain significantly narrower than they were in 2019, before the pandemic. As a result, the industry may see an increase in hospital transactions in 2022 to offset the operational and financial hardships that continue to burden the health care system, as described in greater detail below.
In many US cities, large, nonprofit hospitals, health centers, universities, and colleges—"meds and eds"—pay little, if any, property taxes. That could be changing. Bill Kennedy and Jared Johnson of White and Williams, LLP, warn that litigation is now challenging their nonprofit nature.