Healthcare industry

WASHINGTON - Medicare and Social Security trust funds will run out of money in 2017 and 2037, respectively - two to four years earlier than previously projected - because of the recession, trustees concluded in annual reports sent to Congress.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn late last month said Dr. Quentin Young declined his appointment to serve as chairman of the Health Facilities Planning Board after discovering that his former practice had partial ownership in a property that leases space to Advocate Health Care.

Standard & Poor’s last week downgraded Provena Health System’s issuer credit rating to BBB-plus from A-minus due to challenged operations and light debt-service coverage, and assigned a negative outlook.

New York Gov. David Paterson yesterday nominated a new chairman to the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, the second largest issuer of bonds in the country. Paterson picked Alfonso L. Carney Jr. to replace Gail Gordon, who has served as chairwoman for 11 of the 14 years she’s been on the board.

The Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Finance Authority will head to market in the next two weeks with $200 million of tax-exempt, new-money debt on behalf of Partners HealthCare System.

CHICAGO - A pair of struggling Midwestern hospitals lost their investment-grade ratings from Standard & Poor's last week. Both are suffering from extremely low liquidity - an increasing concern for rating analysts - and recent operational losses.

DALLAS - The Dallas County Hospital District will not issue for at least a year any of the $747 million of voter-authorized bonds that will finance most of a $1.27 billion project to replace county-owned Parkland Hospital.

April is proving to be a busy month for bonds in Nassau County, N.Y.

Standard & Poor’s said it would maintain its A rating and stable outlook on Fargo-based MeritCare Health System after it was forced to evacuate all patients and workers from one of its hospitals due to rising floodwaters in the Red River.

CHICAGO - Moody's Investors Service yesterday said it would develop a new set of liquidity measures to take into account when examining the credit profiles of universities, hospitals, and other nonprofit groups.

Standard & Poor’s last week revised its outlook to negative from stable on St. Louis-based SSM Health Care’s AA-minus rating on $1 billion of debt due to ongoing economic strains on its balance sheet.

DALLAS - Arkansas Children's Hospital will finance more than half the cost of a $121 million expansion to its Little Rock facility with an upcoming negotiated sale of $100 million of revenue bonds by Pulaski County.

CHICAGO - Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Friday named prominent physician and activist Quentin Young to serve as chairman of the once scandal-tainted Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board that regulates billions of dollars in health care-related construction projects.

Virtua Health in southwestern New Jersey will issue $565 million of fixed- and variable-rate bonds in the next few weeks to finance a new 368-bed hospital set to open spring 2011.

The Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority last week created an eight-member advisory committee to evaluate a possible merger with its sister authority, the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency.

Holders of Grace Manor health care facility bonds will be looking to the State of New York Mortgage Agency to make them whole following the nursing home's bankruptcy filing earlier this month.

Advocate Condell Medical Center announced that it has named David Cartwright its new vice president in finance.

Standard & Poor’s earlier this month stripped Care Initiatives’ $86 million of debt from a 2006 issue of its investment-grade status

Nearly a third of Ohio’s hospitals surveyed by an industry group said they have cancelled or delayed construction and capital-improvement projects as they struggle to maintain fiscal stability.

DALLAS - The Texas House this week is considering a $300 million appropriation to pay debt service for what would be the first issue from $3 billion in cancer research bonds, but the path to actual issuance is complicated by a requirement for private investment.