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A group of investors bought this small city’s only hospital in late 2019. To pay for the deal, its buildings and land were sold to one of the country’s largest owners of medical properties. Two years later the hospital went bankrupt, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Watsonville Community Hospital has served the largely Latino farming region of strawberry fields and apple orchards for more than a century. Now, the community is trying to raise as much as $70 million to buy the hospital and save it from closure. “It would be a disaster,” said John Martinelli, chairman of S. Martinelli & Co., a family-owned producer of apple juice and sparkling cider, based in Watsonville. Across the U.S., hospital real estate deals like the one in Watsonville have surged, leaving the facilities paying rent on property they once owned. Many such buyouts are being financed by Medical Properties Trust Inc. Even before these deals, called sale-leasebacks, some hospitals in small cities were struggling financially because they often served relatively poor populations. The deals have made Birmingham, Ala.-based MPT one of the biggest owners of U.S. hospital real estate, with hundreds of properties around the country and more than $20 billion of assets. Its strategy attracted many investors, who fueled MPT’s growth by buying its stock and bonds. The deals at times also have enabled private-equity giants to fund large payouts to their investors by tapping hospitals’ real estate equity. In other situations, the hefty financing that MPT offered drew in lesser-known investors like the group that bought the Watsonville hospital. By acquiring hospitals with MPT’s money, some investors have been able to avoid putting up much of their own cash. If the deal goes bad, the losses fall on the hospital and MPT.

U.S. Senate negotiators on Thursday were nearing a deal on a $10 billion COVID-19 bill to help the federal government acquire more vaccines and medical supplies as it prepares for future variants of the virus that has upended American life, Reuters reported. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that senators were "close to a final agreement" on a bill aiming to shore up stockpiles to be used both domestically and internationally. If a deal is finalized in the coming days, the Senate might be able to pass the bill and send it to the House of Representatives before the start of a spring recess at the end of next week. The amount is a tiny fraction of the $4.6 trillion Congress has approved since early 2020 to fight the virus, much of which was devoted to offsetting its heavy economic hit. Early this month, Congress failed to pass a $15.6 billion relief bill amid Republican opposition to new federal spending. Many Democrats, meanwhile, rebelled against taking back some money earmarked to help state and local governments in order to pay for the new round of coronavirus relief.

The CVS drug store company and pharmaceutical companies will pay Florida a combined $860 million as part of the settlement of an opioid epidemic case, state officials said on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said CVS Health Corp. and CVS Pharmacy Inc. will pay the state $484 million. Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. agreed to pay $195 million and Allergan PLC more than $134 million. In addition, Tevan will provide to Florida about $84 million of its Narcan nasal spray used to treat overdose victims. Another company, Endo Health Solutions, is also settling for $65 million, Moody said. “The opioid epidemic is wreaking havoc on Florida families,” Moody said in a news release. “The monies secured from CVS, Teva, Allergan and Endo will help further our efforts to remediate the harm and suffering of Floridians.” The money from CVS, Moody added, will be divided between the state and Florida cities and counties, which were beset by opioid overdoses and illicit drug use during the “pill mill” epidemic of a decade ago. The money must be spent on tackling the opioid crisis.

California’s lax oversight of its hospice system has led to widespread fraud in Los Angeles County within the rapidly growing industry of end-of-life care, potentially putting patients at risk of harm in their final days, according to a report made public yesterday, the Associated Press reported. State auditors estimate that hospice agencies in the nation’s most populous county, where the facilities are proliferating, likely overbilled Medicare by $105 million in 2019 alone. The report found the California Department of Public Health isn’t rigorous enough in vetting hospice agencies applying for state licenses and then doesn’t adequately follow-up on investigations of suspected fraud, Michael Tilden, the acting state auditor, wrote in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and California legislators. “Without regulations to guide its oversight, its initial licensing site visits and ongoing monitoring do not adequately safeguard patient care or prevent fraud. Its investigation of complaints involving hospice agencies is often incomplete and slow, which increases the risk that patients may receive substandard care or that hospice agencies may engage in fraudulent activity,” Tilden wrote.

Victims of the opioid epidemic confronted the Sackler family members who own Purdue Pharma LP for the first time in bankruptcy court as the OxyContin maker nears a possible exit from chapter 11 that requires $6 billion in settlement payments from its owners, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Addressing three members of the Sackler family who served on Purdue’s board, more than two dozen people shared stories Thursday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., of the disastrous effects physician-prescribed OxyContin, an addictive opioid, had on them, their children, siblings, spouses and parents. Dede Yoder said that her son, Chris, died in 2017 of an overdose at the age of 21 after spending most of her retirement savings on addiction treatment and rehab, which mostly wasn’t covered by health insurance. Doctors first prescribed her son OxyContin when he was 14 years old following two knee surgeries, Ms. Yoder said. Dr. Richard Sackler, Theresa Sackler and David Sackler appeared in the hearing remotely and didn’t respond to victims’ statements. They and other family members consented to hearing victims’ impact statements under a proposed settlement approved on Wednesday by the judge overseeing Purdue’s chapter 11 case. The bankruptcy deal, backed by state attorneys general, would end civil litigation accusing the Sacklers of helping fuel the opioid epidemic and taking improper dividends from Purdue, allegations the family denies.

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, N.Y., approved Purdue Pharma’s $6 billion opioid settlement funded by its Sackler family owners, overruling objections from the Department of Justice and 20 states that opposed the deal, Reuters reported. Under the settlement, the Sacklers would pay between $5.5 billion and $6 billion to a trust that will be used to pay the claims of states, victims of addiction, hospitals and others who have argued that the Purdue painkiller OxyContin played a central role in the U.S. opioid epidemic. The revised settlement must still be written into a new reorganization plan before getting final approval in bankruptcy court. Members of the Sackler family have denied wrongdoing. They said last week in a statement that they “sincerely regret” that OxyContin “unexpectedly became part of an opioid crisis.” The Justice Department’s Office of the U.S. Trustee, which oversees bankruptcy administration, said that the bankruptcy court does not have authority to approve the settlement because an appeals court must first decide whether the Sacklers can receive sweeping legal immunity in exchange for the payment. The Sacklers’ payment is contingent on ending their exposure to opioid lawsuits. But a U.S. District judge ruled in December that the protections they seek fall outside the bankruptcy court’s authority. Purdue is appealing that decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The new agreement replaces an earlier $4.3 billion settlement, which was upended after nine attorneys general and others argued that the Sacklers should not receive such sweeping legal protections. After agreeing to the prior deal, 20 states objected to the new settlement because it includes a $277 million payment exclusively to states that negotiated the $6 billion deal. Some have said that it would unfairly reduce the percentage of funds dedicated to addressing the opioid crisis in their own states. The states still have time to negotiate, Judge Drain said, and may be forced to accept terms they do not like rather than inviting the “dog eat dog” litigation that would result if the settlement fails. Purdue said last week that the settlement would provide additional funding for opioid abatement programs, overdose rescue medicines and for victims, while putting the company on track to resolve its bankruptcy case on “an expedited schedule.” Today, victims of the opioid epidemic will address members of the Sackler family in a hearing overseen by Drain. The hearing will be conducted by Zoom due to COVID-19 restrictions and the Sacklers will not be able to respond.