Bankruptcy and the Health Care Industry: New Rules Raise a Wealth of Questions
Congress intended the health care amendments to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to promote the interests of patients and governmental entities by giving them new rights against health care business debtors. But these new rights raise questions and uncertainty in a process whose participants seek clarity and certitude.
In an effort to protect select interests, Congress has made health care bankruptcies more complex and expensive, less likely to succeed and potentially more likely to be controlled by government regulators. As a result, future health care debtors will wrestle with new legal, policy and economic issues. This legal update, written by Arent Fox attorneys and excerpted from the forthcoming book Bankruptcy Reform 2005, reviews new regulations and obligations.