The Nashville Health Care Council on Thursday hosted one of its marquee events, bringing together four of the best-known equity analysts for a discussion of the sector’s prospects.

There was unanimity that the passage of health care reform — implementation will have really kicked into gear by this time next year — will be a positive for the industry’s major players, led by locals HCA Holdings and Community Health Systems. Click here for some of their top-line thoughts.

Kevin Fischbeck, who recently hiked his price target for CHS shares by $10, also told the Health Care Council that his current enthusiasm for publicly traded hospital companies stems from the important fact that many of the uninsured patients who have been visiting their facilities will now have coverage. But he added an important note of long-term caution.

“Hospitals are also going to be bearing a lot of the cost of funding health care reform,” Fischbeck said. “So we think that a lot of the benefit of reform will be eaten up over time.”

Something to watch for forward-looking investors in Nashville-area hospital companies, which are all up 14 percent or more so far this year.