...BOSTON (Standard & Poor's) May 6, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today assigned its 'B+' issue-level rating (two notches below the corporate credit rating) to Nashville-based HCA Inc.'s proposed $1.6 billion senior unsecured notes, which are being issued to refinance debt at the holding company level. We assigned a '6' recovery rating to this debt, indicating our expectation of negligible (0% to 10%) recovery for bondholders in the event of a payment default. The issue-level ratings are the same as our existing senior unsecured ratings. Our '##' corporate credit rating on HCA reflects our view that its scale relative to other healthcare services peers should allow the company to better offset declining reimbursement rates with cost reduction efforts, and that its scale and market presence should aid in contract negotiations with commercial payors. In addition, HCA's business is diversified beyond inpatient hospital services, with about 38% of revenues coming from outpatient procedures....
