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The White House has threatened to veto a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill that House Democrats hope to bring up for a vote on Friday, UPI.com reported. Known as the HEROES Act, the legislation Democrats unveiled on Tuesday aims to funnel money to state and local governments to address issues that were not included in previous measures and increase funding for the U.S. Postal Service. Since it was announced, Republicans have balked at the package, deriding it as a partisan move filled with expenses unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic, a notion the White House repeated Thursday in its letter to the House of Representatives. "This proposed legislation, however, is more concerned with delivering on longstanding partisan and ideological wishlists than with enhancing the ability of our nation to deal with the public health and economic challenges we face," the Trump administration said. "If H.R. 6800 were presented to the president, his advisors would recommend that he veto the bill." In late March, President Donald Trump signed a more than $2 trillion COVID-19 bailout package, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said instead of working on a new bill focus should now be on maximizing the effects of the first package. "We now have a debt the size of our economy," McConnell said. "So I've said, and the president has said as well, that we have to take a pause here and take a look at what we've done."

Quorum Health Corp. is set to skirmish with activist investor Mudrick Capital Management LP over how long the hospital operator should hang around in bankruptcy in expectation of a federal bailout, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, also known as the Cares Act, could help in averting a wipeout for Quorum shareholders, according to Mudrick, a distressed-debt-focused hedge fund run by Jason Mudrick. Quorum says in court papers that Mudrick is trying to “extract holdup value” by advancing speculative valuations, which would justify a return to shareholders. The investor is urging a delay in a chapter 11 plan process that Quorum hopes will get it out of bankruptcy by June, with a trimmer balance sheet. A bankruptcy judge in Delaware is slated to preside over the debate today.

Many small doctors’ practices are struggling to survive as many patients shelter at home and put off consultations for all but the most urgent issues, the Washington Post reported. Although they’re still ministering to patients amid a health crisis, they’ve been unable to get loans under the Paycheck Protection Act, passed as part of the coronavirus relief package in late March. A survey done by a Richmond-based advocacy group for primary care doctors, called the Larry A. Green Center, found that half the doctors who sought such loans were unsuccessful. Of 2,774 doctors who responded to the survey, 19 percent said they had to temporarily close their practices because of financial problems; 42 percent had to lay off or furlough staff. About 10 percent say they will have to close in the next month because of financial shortfalls. Some are angry their plight has been ignored by federal lawmakers while cash-starved hospitals are slated to receive $100 billion in government relief. About $3.9 billion of that pool has gone to practices with 10 or fewer clinicians, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, but it has generally paid out far less than the Small Business Association loans.

Negotiations on Capitol Hill over the next package of coronavirus economic relief have revived discussions about ending surprise medical billing, an effort to bolster patient protections that has sparked heavy spending by opponents who warn of damage to the health-care system, the Wall Street Journal reported. Surprise billing typically occurs when a patient is treated at a hospital that is in their insurance network by a medical professional who isn’t, potentially leading to crippling medical charges. The push to end surprise billing pits patient advocates and health-insurance providers, who back the effort, against hospital and medical groups who say it amounts to government rate-setting that would jeopardize the finances of some hospitals and mean out-of-network doctors earn less money. Lawmakers and the administration have already ensured that anyone without insurance getting treated for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, can’t get stuck with an unexpected medical bill — and advocates say that protection should be expanded to cover patients with any medical issue. But the pandemic’s effect on hospitals, especially rural hospitals that have halted the elective procedures that bring in much of their revenue, adds a complication to the debate, according to congressional aides. Moving to end surprise medical billing could cost hospitals more money just as they are already struggling. The top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate health committee and House Energy and Commerce panel have been pushing for almost a year to end surprise medical billing. They reached a rare, high-level bipartisan agreement in December, backed by President Trump, to end the surprise bills and include a new system in which insurers would pay at least an agreed-upon rate for services, and independent arbitration would settle billing disputes. But its supporters — chief among them the Senate health committee’s chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) — weren’t able to include it in a must-pass spending measure at year’s end, leaving its fate uncertain. Alexander is retiring at the end of this year and has made ending surprise medical billing one of his final goals.

A bankruptcy judge in New York held turnaround executive Lynn Tilton responsible under state law for covering wages to employees who went unpaid in the bankruptcy of defunct ambulance company TransCare Corp., WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Transcare filed for bankruptcy in February 2016, leaving its ambulances driven by people who wouldn’t get their final paychecks, according to a ruling issued Thursday by Judge Stuart Bernstein of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Court-appointed trustee Salvatore LaMonica, unable to get assurances he would get money for payroll and worried that ambulance workers would simply abandon vehicles complete with their caches of drugs, shut down the business and rounded up the vehicles. The ruling granted partial judgment to a class of employees that sued in bankruptcy court for unpaid wages after the ambulance company laid them off. It clears the way for a trial on claims by 1,800 ambulance company employees who were put out of work by TransCare’s collapse. In addition to state-law claims for unpaid wages, which could add up to about $1.7 million, former TransCare employees are pursuing damages under laws requiring advance notice of mass layoffs.

A judge ruled that a bankrupt hospital operator shouldn’t have to rely solely on financing from the federal government’s Covid-19 relief package because the timing of those funds could be uncertain, the Wall Street Journal reported. Hedge-fund manager Mudrick Capital Management LP, which holds a roughly 15 percent stake in bankrupt Quorum Health Corp., had objected to the company’s plan for $100 million in financing from current bondholders to help it get through chapter 11. Mudrick said Quorum could receive at least that much, maybe double that amount, from the government’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act. Mudrick lawyers said yesterday during a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., that if Quorum’s own forecast of CARES Act aid — $45 million to $80 million — is accurate, then the company didn’t need a $100 million bankruptcy loan. Mudrick also had complained that lenders’ fees, interest payments and other charges in the bankruptcy financing were “exorbitant.” At the end of the six-hour hearing conducted by teleconference, which included live testimony from Quorum representatives, Bankruptcy Judge Karen Owens overruled Mudrick’s objection and gave final approval to Quorum to tap the loan. She said that Quorum appeared to have made an effort to shop for alternative financing to no avail, and that the terms are fair and reasonable in Delaware.

The Trump administration is considering disbanding the White House’s coronavirus task force, administration officials said, as the virus continues to spread around the country and a key model projected that the current number of U.S. deaths could nearly double by this summer, the Wall Street Journal reported. President Trump confirmed the discussions during a trip to Arizona yesterday, saying that the government was considering setting up a new group focused on “safety and opening.” They are unfolding amid concerns by some health experts about a second outbreak of the virus as states increasingly relax economic restrictions. “We’re going to put the flame out,” Trump said about the outbreak, adding that “we can’t keep our country closed.” Trump said he would continue to consult with doctors and public health officials in the administration.

An investor is pushing back against Brentwood, Tenn.-based Quorum Health's chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan, according to court documents and a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Becker's Hospital Review reported. Quorum, which operates 23 hospitals across 13 states, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware on April 7 and entered into a restructuring agreement. Mudrick Capital Management, which owns nearly 15 percent of Quorum's shares, is now arguing that the restructuring agreement is "factually and legally stale" because of the grants available to Quorum through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. "Although the debtors were unaware of the full amount of the cash infusion coming their way, to date, none of that value is in the debtors' valuation, none goes to equity, none of the underlying facts have been disclosed, and the debtors have yet to exercise their much-touted 'fiduciary out,’” Mudrick’s attorneys wrote in an April 30 court filing. "It is plain that the debtors should terminate the [restructuring agreement] and withdraw the plan." According to the Nashville Post, Mudrick claims Quorum has received $19.2 million in federal aid and could receive at least another $127 million.

Even as the novel coronavirus pandemic draws attention and resources to the nation’s doctors and hospitals, the health-care industry is suffering a historic collapse in business that is emerging as one of the most powerful forces hurting the U.S. economy and a threat to a potential recovery, the Washington Post reported. The widespread economic shutdown deployed to reduce transmission of the coronavirus hit hospitals and health-care providers with particular force as they prepared to face the pandemic. Most elective surgeries nationwide were postponed beginning in mid-March. Dentists offices were closed. Physicians stopped seeing all but the sickest patients in their offices. Stay-at-home orders didn’t just prevent people from dining in restaurants — they led people to avoid medical services, too, amid concerns about the virus’s disease, COVID-19. More than 200 hospitals, including Children’s National Hospital in Washington, have furloughed workers, according to a tally by Becker’s Hospital Review. The result was that health-care spending declined at an annualized rate of 18 percent in the first three months of the year, according to Commerce Department data released last week, the largest reduction since the government started keeping records in 1959.