Officials press ahead with hospital authority plan

Prince George’s County says it is working on alternative deal

Sponsors say that having an independent board take over the medical system will help resolve control issues, which have become a recurring source of conflict in county politics. The bill envisions letting managers build up the hospital’s assets in hopes of selling them by 2015.

‘‘The idea for an authority is to find new partners,” said Del. Doyle L. Niemann (D-Dist. 47) of Mount Rainier, who drafted one of the delegation bills. ‘‘Many interested buyers won’t look at it now until local control issues are resolved.”

Although details differ between the two authority bills, both call for the county and state to fund an independent agency that would be responsible for operating and rehabilitating the system’s four medical centers.

The hospital system has lost money for years, in part from the high number of uninsured patients who use the county-created system. State and local lawmakers have argued for years over management and bailouts for the hospitals.

Niemann’s bill calls for the state to fund about $23 million each year to the authority, while the county would pay $17 million annually. Another bill calls for an escalating payment plan that would cost the county $157 million in authority payments between 2008 and 2015, with the state paying $133 million.

A similar proposal was set to pass in the final hours of last year’s session, but it was scrapped when County Council members began questioning the cost for the local government. County officials had asked that the state discount the county’s proposed payments by factoring in millions for the value of the county-owned hospital land and facilities in Laurel, Cheverly and Bowie.

Even though the authority option has been on the table for months now, county officials have pushed instead for a private company to take over. Talks began again last summer with Ascension Health Care, a St. Louis-based Catholic Hospital chain that owns and runs 77 hospitals in the nation, including Providence Hospital in Washington, sources say. The company also was courted last year.

Johnson, who has not confirmed that Ascension is the prospective buyer, first asked county delegates to hold off at a Jan. 11 meeting, saying a deal was ‘‘close.”

‘‘If we don’t have something for you in two weeks, you go ahead,” he said at the time.

The decision by delegates to introduce the authority bills came four weeks later.

‘‘Since that deal is not done, he has said the legislature should proceed. I’m taking him at his word,” Niemann said.

A spokesman for Johnson said the county sees the current proposal for an authority as ‘‘Plan B.”

‘‘The executive and the council are still spending a lot of time trying to put together the finishing touches that would have another entity come in,” said John Erzen, spokesman for Johnson.

Questions remain about how much support the hospital authority will have, and whether all sides will agree to it this time around.

County Democrats recently elevated former Prince George’s Council Chairman David C. Harrington to the state Senate to succeed Gwendolyn T. Britt, who died of heart failure Jan. 12. Harrington was one of the council members who helped to derail the hospital proposal last year. He has said he favors Johnson’s proposal for a private takeover.

‘‘I support the county initiative, which I expect will be coming out very, very soon,” Harrington said recently.

Also complicating the hospital issue is Harrington’s replacement as council chairman, Councilman Samuel H. Dean (D-Dist. 6) of Mitchellville.

During his 2005 term as council chairman, Dean clashed with Johnson over charter amendments limiting Johnson’s power to award contracts without council approval. He was also among the council members who rejected the most recent hospital deal in the final days of last year’s session.

State lawmakers may need to override the council, Niemann said.

‘‘The state is the superior governmental agency,” he said.

Fiscal issues are also at work. With a cost of about $23 million a year, it may be difficult to convince the general assembly to fund an authority this year.

‘‘It’s not necessarily going to be easy,” Niemann said.