Healthcare industry

Highmark, Inc. and state lawmakers are pushing the Pennsylvania Insurance Department to step up its review of the West Penn Allegheny Health System affiliation, but the agency wants more details.

Gov. Bob McDonnell informed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that Virginia will not be pursuing a state-based health benefits exchange for 2014.

Standard & Poor's has revised its outlook to stable from positive on Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity Ministries Inc.'s BBB-plus rating.

The Phoenix City Council adopted a one-year tax on local hospitals to generate up to $130 million a year as matching funds for federal healthcare.

Market-based solutions are needed to reform the United States healthcare system, said a former chief executive officer of pharmaceutical giant Merck at The Bond Buyer's 501(c)3 conference.

The $3 billion bond-funded Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas faces a criminal investigation over an $11 million grant to a company backed by a major campaign contributor to Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, according to the Travis County District Attorney's public integrity unit.

Public-private partnerships will take over operations in 2013 at three Louisiana State University hospitals and another one under construction.

A $3 billion bond-funded cancer research program that granted funds to a firm backed by donors to Texas Gov. Rick Perry is under investigation by the state attorney general's office, and the executive director of the program has resigned.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded to A2 from A1 its rating on the Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System.

The Internal Revenue Service has suggested that some of the revenue bonds issued in 1993 by the New Jersey Health Care Facilities Financing Authority for Deborah Heart and Lung Center may not be tax-exempt because of a "total return swap," and has asked NJHCFFA for more information.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded to Ba2 from Ba1 the long-term bond rating assigned to Good Samaritan Hospital’s 64.5 million of outstanding bonds issued by the Lebanon County Health Facilities Authority.

The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York's board on Wednesday approved $175 million of new financings for healthcare, higher education, and non-profit institutions.

A state-owned hospital that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal hoped to lease for $35 million is worth only $20.9 million at best, according to a new appraisal of the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital.

Standard & Poor's lowered West Penn Allegheny to CC from B-minus in the beleaguered health system's third downgrade from a major rating agency in two months.

Moody’s Investors Service revised the outlook on Baa1-rated Fletcher Allen Health Care to positive from stable, affecting $330 million of outstanding debt.

Fitch Ratings affirmed its BBB rating on Peninsula United Methodist Homes Inc., and upgraded the outlook to positive from stable.

West Penn Allegheny Health System revealed that the Securities and Exchange Commission may sue it over accounting discrepancies.

Moody's has assigned an issuer credit rating of Baa1 to Presence Health, the new health care system created by the merger late last year of Resurrection Health Care and Provena Health.

The federal bankruptcy court in Chicago has signed off on a suburban Chicago retirement community's reorganization plan that relies on a $90 million bond issue to restructure its $116 million 2006 issue.

Federal cuts to physician reimbursement in the Medicare program would have a negative effect on U.S. nonprofit hospitals, Fitch Ratings says.