Fitch Issues Special Report for 2010 U.S. Health Care Credit Outlook

CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Fitch Ratings issued a special report today on the U.S. Health Care Credit Outlook for 2010. The report provides supporting data and commentary to the conclusions listed in Fitch’s outlook press release issued on Dec. 2, 2009, titled ‘Fitch: Economic Pressure & Event Risk Will Drive U.S. Healthcare’s Negative Outlook in 2010’. According to the report, Fitch’s negative outlook for the U.S. Health Care sector for 2010 is driven by two keys factors – continued economic pressure and potential health care reform legislation.

Persistent high unemployment impacting health insurance coverage along with a muted ability for people to manage out-of-pocket costs of co-payments and co-insurance will continue to hamper prospects for the industry, in general, in 2010.

Fitch says growing event risk surrounding U.S. healthcare reform and the subsequent impact on health insurance coverage, reimbursement and the corresponding change in the competitive landscape create uncertainty regarding the long-term financial results for the sector. Credit trends in the various health care sub-sectors are dependent on company managements’ ability to counter these factors to offset potential compression of profitability.

The full report, ‘U.S. Health Care: 2010 Credit Outlook’ is available at www.fitchratings.com.

Additional information is available at www.fitchratings.com.

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Fitch Ratings
Michael Zbinovec, +1-312-368-3164 (Chicago)
or
Cindy Stoller, +1-212-908-0526
(Media Relations, New York)
cindy.stoller@fitchratings.com

Source: Fitch Ratings