HCA Watchers Take Sides

Like relatives outside a patient's sickroom, some hospital experts have once again started hoping for the best.

The industry's vital signs remain rather weak. Hospitals continue to struggle with mounting shortages of doctors, nurses and -- perhaps most importantly -- insured patients who actually pay their bills. As a result, they have wound up sharing some of their profits with available physicians while getting sued for allegedly sharing too little with the nurses who help those doctors out. Meanwhile, they have found no real cure for bad debts from the uninsured and could wait years before the best prospects -- like health care credit cards and state-mandated health insurance -- actually take off.

Yet, despite everything, some hospital analysts have been warming up to hospital giant HCA (HCA Quote). ...