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From small-town Vermont to Los Angeles, local governments are commandeering shut-down hospitals to add space amid the coronavirus pandemic — a trend that could revamp the market for health-care facilities, the Wall Street Journal reported. Just months ago, St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles and Astria Regional Medical Center in Yakima, Wash., were closed, unable to bring in enough revenue to stay afloat. Both are poised to reopen with the help of state funds and, in the case of St. Vincent, $135 million from the family foundation of Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times. In Vermont, a bankruptcy court pulled back from the brink one of many hospitals facing a financial squeeze from the drop-off in lucrative surgeries that are critical to their bottom lines. In West Virginia, a government-funded community health-care group stepped in with a deal that will save critical beds at another bankrupt small hospital. These hospitals’ rebirth comes as health-care facilities are being pushed to their limits by the pandemic. As medical centers across the U.S. prepare for an influx of hundreds of thousands of new patients, President Trump is expected to use a federal stimulus package to pay hospitals that treat uninsured people infected with the new coronavirus. Bankruptcy judges are acting quickly on creative arrangements that allow public officials to rescue health systems that could be pushed to their limits by a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Quorum Health Corp., the operator of two dozen hospitals in 14 states, is preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing as the looming flood of coronavirus patients puts pressure on the already shaky finances of health-care providers throughout the U.S., Bloomberg News reported. Management has been negotiating with stakeholders on a variety of possible deals, according to people with knowledge of the company’s plans, who asked not to be named discussing private negotiations. At the same time, Quorum is preparing chapter 11 plans as hope fades for an out-of-court solution, the people said. No decision has been made, and the outcome could still change. The chain’s dilemma may be just the beginning of a wave of trouble for American hospitals, especially in less populated areas like the ones served by Quorum. Even before the coronavirus hit, hospitals have been losing profitable elective procedures to outpatient facilities while still handling patients who lack good insurance. Now as medical centers cancel optional treatments to spare resources for coronavirus patients, their slim revenue margins are being further squeezed, and federal relief may not be quick or abundant enough to save them. More than 30 facilities went bankrupt last year.

Amid a pandemic that has sickened thousands in the U.S., many hospitals and doctors are grappling with an unexpected side effect: a financial squeeze that could deplete the health-care resources needed to meet local surges in cases and threatens the operations of some financially struggling hospitals, the Wall Street Journal reported. Coronavirus patients are overwhelming hospitals in cities including New York, New Orleans and Detroit. As others brace for similar spikes, they are also seeing sharp drop-offs in regular doctor visits, emergency-room arrivals and the lucrative surgeries that are vital to most hospitals’ bottom lines. Hospitals are burning through cash even as nonprofit operators have seen their reserves in investment portfolios dented, spurring credit agencies to put the sector on a negative outlook— despite an expected influx of money from a newly passed federal aid package. HCA Healthcare Inc., one of the nation’s largest hospital operators, has closed clinics and outpatient facilities and cut employees’ hours. A family-medicine practice in Dallas furloughed a third of its staff. A major 48-hospital nonprofit system will put 700 workers on temporary leave.

A foundation run by the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Time is looking to buy the closed St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles out of bankruptcy for $135 million and reopen it to treat coronavirus patients, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, a nonprofit founded about a decade ago by Patrick Soon-Shiong and his wife, Michele B. Chan, has agreed to serve as the lead bidder to acquire St. Vincent from the hospital’s bankrupt owner, Verity Health System of California Inc., according to court papers. The proposed deal comes as California looks to ramp up critical medical access and provide other essential health-care services. While California has only about 6,900 confirmed coronavirus cases so far, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office is gearing up to add 50,000 more hospital beds statewide to cope with the growing number of Covid-19 infections. A South Africa-born surgeon turned entrepreneur, Dr. Soon-Shiong said in an interview he is particularly concerned about the Los Angeles homeless population, which city officials estimated last year at more than 36,000. St. Vincent’s, a 366-bed facility, shut its doors in January after a previous deal to sell it fell apart. Opened in 1856, it was Los Angeles’s first hospital.

President Trump retreated yesterday from his desire to relax coronavirus guidelines by Easter, announcing instead that all Americans must continue to avoid nonessential travel, going to work, eating at bars and restaurants, or gathering in groups of more than 10 for at least another month and perhaps until June, the New York Times reported. Trump said repeatedly last week that he wanted to reverse such drastic measures soon, perhaps by Easter, on April 12, in the hopes of restarting the economy. But public health experts — including the president’s own advisers — had warned that trying to return to normal life too quickly risked allowing the virus to rage, increasing the likelihood of more infections and raising the number of deaths.

With so much still uncertain about how widespread hospitalizations for coronavirus patients will be around the United States, a new analysis says premiums could increase as much as 40 percent next year if the pandemic results in millions of Americans needing hospital stays, the New York Times reported. “Health plans went into 2020 with no hint of coronavirus on the horizon,” said Peter V. Lee, the executive director of Covered California, the state insurance marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act, which conducted the analysis. To protect businesses and individuals from sharply higher rates, he supports a temporary federal program that would cover some of these costs. “No insurer, no state, planned and put money away for something of this significance,” Lee said. So far, some 94,000 people have become infected in the United States, according to official counts, and at least 1,400 have died. In New York state alone, nearly 1,600 patients were in intensive-care units as of Friday morning and the numbers have been rising all week. Lee’s organization estimated the total cost to the commercial insurance market, which represents the coverage currently offered to 170 million workers and individuals through private health plans. The analysis does not include costs for people enrolled in government programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

The judge overseeing Purdue Pharma LP’s bankruptcy shielded the OxyContin maker’s owners for another six months from lawsuits over the U.S. opioid crisis, saying that forcing them to defend themselves would disrupt settlement talks, the Wall Street Journal reported. Yesterday’s ruling by Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., extended the shield against litigation through October, against the wishes of state attorneys general who were seeking permission to resume lawsuits targeting members of Purdue’s controlling family, the Sacklers. Their lawsuits have been on hold since October, when Judge Drain extended to the Sacklers the shield against litigation that Purdue received when it filed for chapter 11 protection. Purdue has proposed a settlement of thousands of lawsuits from states, local governments and Native American tribes that blame the company and the Sacklers for helping fuel drug addiction through the powerful painkiller OxyContin. Two dozen state attorneys general aren’t on board with the proposed deal, under which the Sacklers would relinquish the company and pay another $3 billion. While the Sacklers haven’t declared bankruptcy themselves, Purdue has said they are more likely to come to terms with the holdout states if they are negotiating rather than fighting in court. With an initial standstill period set to expire, holdout states objected last week when Purdue sought another 180-day extension. They said that shielding the Sacklers from having to defend themselves in other jurisdictions would send a message that wealthy individuals can avoid having to answer for alleged wrongdoing. Purdue and the Sacklers have broadly denied they acted improperly regarding the company’s marketing and sale of OxyContin and said the bankruptcy process is the best way to reach a deal that would free up money for fighting opioid addiction.