The Road to Recovery : Survey Finds Some Industries Rolling Along but Others Are Stalled : HEALTH CARE

“People still get sick,” goes the maxim, whatever the economy’s condition. And that fact of life should mean continued growth for hospitals and the many other facets of the vast health-care industry.

More important to the industry’s future than recession or recovery are fundamental social and political trends that raise new opportunities and new problems.

With health-care costs continuing to rise, hospitals and health-care suppliers are under pressure to become more efficient, pressure that has fueled demand for out-patient treatment and other cost-cutting methods.

At the same time, the aging of the Baby Boom generation will create huge markets for new products and services. Technological advances are creating whole new categories of treatment. The biotechnology sector is just beginning to come into its own and will help drive industry growth in the next decade.

Perhaps the biggest question mark comes from the drive to establish a health-care umbrella for the whole population. As Congress seeks ways to protect the nation’s 37 million uninsured or under-insured people, providers anticipate sweeping changes in the industry.

“Hospital usage has to go up with so many entering the system, so hospitals--which have suffered since 1983--will benefit,” said Hemant Shah, a New Jersey-based health-care industry analyst.

But analyst David F. Saks of Morgan Wedbush Securities in New York warned that a completely socialized health-care system “would be the greatest adversity to the industry--far, far worse than any recession.”