Hospitals across the country are off on a building spree

American hospitals are big business, and many of them are about to get much bigger. As reported by Modern Healthcare magazine, across the country, a hospital building boom is underway.

Construction projects are sprouting up all over. OhioHealth, a hospital system based in Columbus, opened a new $300 million neuroscience center this month at Riverside Methodist Hospital, its largest facility. UT Southwestern in Dallas opened the William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital last December with a $100 million donation.

Across the state, Texas Children's Hospital in Houston is building a $195.7 million facility that is set to open in 2017 and a new tower on its main campus that is set to open in 2018. Presbyterian Healthcare Services in Albuquerque plans to spend $450 million over the next two years on capital projects including a new cancer center.

In the first quarter of 2015, nonprofit hospitals borrowed $8.5 billion through bond offerings, up from $1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2014. Among the biggest borrowers were Trinity Health in Livonia, Michigan at $1 billion to buy and renovate new facilities, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York at $550 million for new ambulatory care facilities, and the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City at $250 million for a new campus.

What is fueling the construction activity? Two factors are likely at play. One is the recovering economy, which leaves more people with money for elective procedures.

The other is Obamacare. With more than 10 million people newly insured through the law's insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion in the states that accepted it, hospitals expect to have many more paying customers and fewer whose care is uncompensated.

American health care just keeps growing. With the economic recovery continuing and Obamacare having passed its second Supreme Court test, hold on for a pace that is even faster.

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