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A sale is imminent for a San Antonio medical office building mired in bankruptcy — despite some fireworks at an auction last week, the San Antonio Express-News reported. Camco Land Ltd., an Austin partnership, successfully bid $14.2 million for the building at 9618 Huebner, edging out Denver-based Broe Real Estate Group by $100,000. The sale is expected to close later this week. Before approving the sale on Wednesday, though, Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald King denied Cherish Medical Office Building LLC the opportunity to bid amid allegations it has connections with Michael Horrell — who is involved with the building’s current ownership. Ray Battaglia, a bankruptcy lawyer for Palomar LLC, which has a stake in the building’s bankrupt ownership group, Tresha-MOB LLC, raised the objection regarding Cherish. Battaglia said on Monday it was his understanding that Randy Soule, Cherish’s owner, has had a long association with Horrell and that it should have been disclosed to the court before the auction.

Angel Medical Systems has raised $10 million in a new equity round of financing after clearing its chapter 11 bankruptcy plans, MassDevice.com reported. The Eatontown, N.J.-based company developed the FDA-cleared AngelMed implantable cardiac monitor system intended for patients who had prior acute coronary syndrome events, including myocardial infarctions or unstable angina, and who remained at high risk for recurrent ACS events. Angel Medical Systems won approval for its chapter 11 bankruptcy emergence plans in January. The company said last Friday that it has successfully exited from chapter 11 as a private company, adding that the plan was supported by its creditors and that it has converted all existing note holder debt to equity.

Horton (Kan.) Community Hospital closed March 12, but it has begun the process of reopening, Becker's Hospital Review reported. The 25-bed critical access hospital shut down after months of financial troubles. The hospital, owned by an affiliate of Kansas City, Mo.-based EmpowerHMS, was nearly 30 days behind on payroll when it closed. Horton Community Hospital filed for chapter 11 protection two days after it closed, and a trustee was appointed to oversee the hospital's operations. The hospital began the first phase of reopening on March 25, when a few employees came in to answer phones and retrieve medical records. However, it may be several months before the facility fully reopens. Read more. 

For more on hospital and health care insolvencies, be sure to pick up a copy of the ABI Health Care Insolvency Manual, Third Edition from the ABI Bookstore. 

The Justice Department now believes the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, a reversal from its position this past summer when the government said changes to the individual mandate were unconstitutional but severable from the whole law, the National Law Journal reported. A Justice Department filing yesterday said that the government believes a district court judge’s ruling that the entire Obama-era health care law is unconstitutional should be affirmed. Main Justice has a long tradition of defending the constitutionality of federal laws, and, while there are exceptions, it’s rare for the department to refuse to defend federal statutes. Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in December that a congressional tax law passed in 2017 — which zeroed out the penalty imposed by the ACA’s individual mandate — rendered the entire health care law unconstitutional. The law, however, remains in effect while the ruling is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Justice Department’s change in course comes nearly two months after now-Attorney General Bill Barr told senators during his confirmation that he was open to reconsidering the government’s stance in the case. A coalition of states, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, have defended the law after the Justice Department made the controversial decision to drop its defense. The U.S. House of Representatives also stepped in to defend the law and hired former U.S. Solicitor General Don Verrilli, who defended the ACA at the U.S. Supreme court nearly six years ago. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and several other states are leading that challenge.

Purdue Pharma LLP said that its decision on whether to file for bankruptcy to avoid being swamped by opioid lawsuits doesn’t depend on the timing of the first trial over its role in the public-health crisis, Bloomberg News reported. A judge in Oklahoma Friday refused Purdue’s, Johnson & Johnson’s and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s requests to push back a May trial of Oklahoma officials’ suit seeking to recover as much as $25 billion in current and future costs of dealing with the opioid epidemic. The makers of opioid-based painkillers said pre-trial information exchanges have bogged down and there’s no way they can be ready to face a state court jury in Norman, Oklahoma by May 28. Judge Thad Balkman rebuffed companies’ request, saying the case needed to move forward. Balkman also denied the companies’ request to stay the trial while they asked the state’s appellate courts to review his ruling. Purdue executives said on Friday that the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office has failed to turn over thousands of documents needed for trial and that “unfairly prejudiced Purdue’s ability to adequately prepare our defenses,” said Robert Josephson, a company spokesman.

A southern Indiana hospital that's struggled financially will close this spring after a decade of operation, the Indianapolis Business Journal reported. A required state notice sent this week to the Kentuckiana Medical Center's employees says the Clarksville hospital will close April 27, at which time its employees' benefits will end. WorkOne Southern Indiana's director of operations, Jacqueline James, said that the hospital's closure will have "a big impact" on the Ohio River city that's just north of Louisville, Kentucky, because about 200 people will lose their jobs. The 80,000-square-foot hospital opened in 2009 and filed for chapter 11 protection the following year. The hospital was started by a group of southern Indiana doctors at a time when doctor-owned hospitals and surgical centers were springing up nationwide.