Healthcare industry

LOS ANGELES — Downey Regional Medical Center, a non-profit hospital located in greater Los Angeles, is close to reaching an agreement with Avanti Health Systems LLC that would enable it to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy and make its bondholders whole.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded the rating of Turnersville-based Kennedy Memorial Hospital University Medical Center to A3 from A2. The outlook remains stable at the lower level, analysts said.

Staff of the California Health Facilities Financing Authority recommended approving a plan to issue $275 million of bonds on behalf of San Diego-based Scripps Health.

Fitch Ratings assigned a AA-minus rating Wednesday to a planned $355 million bond issuance on behalf of Sacramento-based Sutter Health, which owns, leases and-or operates 31 hospitals.

CHICAGO — Blaming a bad housing market and the failure to reach an agreement with bondholders, an Ohio senior-living facility that missed its most recent debt-service payments filed for Chapter 11 protection last week.

WASHINGTON — States are facing a "big squeeze" of slow economic growth, the need for increased spending on Medicaid and other programs, the loss of federal funds and requests for help from cash-strapped local governments, two groups said in a report released Tuesday.

CHICAGO — Six months after a devastating tornado destroyed its competitor's facility, Freeman Health System in Joplin, Mo., will come to market next week with $25 million of bonds, primarily to fund additional beds needed to meet a surge in demand for its services.

Moody's Investors Service last week affirmed its Baa1 rating on Summa Health System in Ohio.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Hospital Sisters Services Inc.'s rating by one notch to A1 due to sizeable operating losses at the Springfield, Ill.-based system.

Proponents of a measure to increase South Dakota’s sales tax to fund K-12 and Medicaid said they have gathered more than twice the required signatures to put it on next year’s ballot.

Moody’s Investors Service placed Cleveland-based MetroHealth System on watch list for potential downgrade due to a decline in financial performance through the first nine months of fiscal 2011. The credit is rated A2.

A parcel tax that will help the struggling Doctors Medical Center stay afloat passed with nearly three-fourths of the vote on Tuesday.

Fitch Ratings assigned an A-plus rating Monday to a $147.9 million refunding planned by Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

CHICAGO - Almost out of cash to keep operating, an upscale retirement facility in downtown Chicago financed with $229 million of bonds filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week after the failure of negotiations with a group of investors aimed at buying the facility breathing room.

Texas Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, told a 10-member committee established to lay the groundwork for building a medical school in Austin that it is too early to know how much the proposal will cost.

CHICAGO - Promedica Health System will hold a retail order period Wednesday followed by institutional pricing Thursday for $145 million of refunding bonds.

Fitch Ratings assigned a AA to the Maine Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority's $37.25 million of Series 2011C revenue bonds, which are expected to sell by negotiation this week.

When Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor, Maine, scuttled plans to establish a research facility in Florida, several other states came banging at the door of the genetics research company. Connecticut won out.

Standard & Poor's warned that retiree health care benefits are a growing burden for public universities.

Wisconsin’s not-for-profit hospitals last year generated $28 billion in economic activity and provided $1.4 billion in community benefits, according to new studies.