I was corrected earlier in the pandemic: I thought Hospitals LOVED covid because of all the money they got for services. Someone then pointed out that COVID pr

I was corrected earlier in the pandemic: I thought Hospitals LOVED covid because of all the money they got for services. Someone then pointed out that COVID prevents a lot of really high margin care, substituted instead for drudgery healthcare and is killing the hospital bottom lines. I suspect what is REALLY going on here is a combination of both the surge of care for the explosive Omicron variant, and the loss of high-margin care is undermining the profitability again. The four big mafiosos of US healthcare are Health Insurance, Drug/Device makers, Doctors/Hospital Providers, and the Malpractice Trial Lawyers. All four of them have REALLY powerful lobbying arms (even the Trial Lawyers, the least significant revenue wise and numbers wise of the four, but they are lawyers so they know how to gum up the system). They point to everyone else when the question of "why so expensive" comes up. But it's all about the unsustainable profit margins/revenue structures in the US care system. If you see an article like this, I always suspect it's really about unsustainable profitability whatever complaining entity has setup.