Large healthcare companies are redistributing most of their profits to shareholders, study finds

Healthcare DIVE February 12, 2025
Rebecca Pifer

Researchers suggested that policymakers encourage reinvestment of capital into patient care and limit share buybacks based on the findings.

Dive Brief:

• Shareholder payouts from large, publicly traded healthcare companies jumped more than three times between 2001 and 2022, suggesting healthcare companies may be prioritizing rewarding shareholders over reinvesting income into improving patient care, according to new research.
• Over those two decades, shareholder payouts increased 315% from $54 billion in 2001 to $170.2 billion in 2022, the study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine found. In total, shareholder payouts over that timeframe reached $2.6 trillion.
• Overall, the healthcare industry allocated 95% of aggregate net income to shareholder payouts, while in three subsectors — healthcare facilities, distributors and pharmaceuticals — shareholder...

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