PA health agency gets new lease on life

Pennsylvania's health-care watchdog agency got a life-extending injection from Gov. Ed Rendell this afternoon.

At a 2 pm press conference, Rendell announced that he has signed an executive order allowing the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council to continue operating through June 30. Without the order the independent agency would have closed at the end of this month.

"PHC4 has been responsible for a lot of very very important advances in health care delivery system," said Rendell at a news conference. "I have the power to extend their lifespan and I did just that."

Reauthorization of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council this summer was ensnared in an unrelated political fight between Rendell and Senate Republicans.

Since July, the independent agency, known simply as PHC4, has been operating under an executive order that was due to expire at the end of the month.

With that deadline approaching, the governor acted this afternoon to keep the agency open through June.

That will give the General Assembly more time to pass a reauthorization bill after it returns to session in January.

PHC4 was established in 1986. It has some 40 employees and an annual budget of $5 million. The agency is governed by a independent board dominated by representatives from businesses and unions.

PHC4 is widely recognized for its groundbreaking reports on health care quality and cost, including the nation's first statewide study of infections contracted by patients during hospital stays.

In September, PHC4 issued two major reports, one on heart surgery and another on performance of hospitals in 51 categories of care from abnormal heart beats to strokes. Unlike other states, the council's reports detail how well hospitals performed, based on patient outcomes.

PHC4 was briefly forced to shut down in July after its reauthorization was tied to an extension of a program to reduce the cost of medical malpractice coverage for the state's doctors, known as MCARE abatement.

Rendell rejected that bill. He has said he would not sign legislation to extend MCARE abatement until the state legislature acted on his proposal to make affordable health insurance available to many of the state's 800,000 uninsured adults.