GOP budget hawks could look into hospital chains’ Medicaid profits, WSJ says

Concerns over Medicaid spending have weighed on Universal Health Services (UHS) and other hospital stocks. But their situation could easily get worse, and, depending on the political climate, far worse, The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weil reports. The stocks currently represent a wager on political outcomes as much as they do on company fundamentals, with Republicans looking for cost savings that could sink profits at Universal Health Services, others. Some Republican lawmakers want Medicaid left alone. It covers 79M people, lots of Trump supporters rely on it, and hospitals that benefit are a powerful lobby. But the Trump administration will have trouble hitting its stated deficit-cutting goals without targeting Medicaid, the Journal notes.