Secrecy, anxiety loom over hospital plans

‘Confident’ Muse expects details to emerge next week

Muse (D-Dist. 26) of Fort Washington said senators would receive ‘‘a formal briefing” with numbers and details of the plan not presented by Johnson in a closed-door briefing with the county’s delegates on Feb. 22. Public disclosure of the plan also is expected next week.

County officials took the same behind-the-scenes tack to negotiations last year when a deal between county and state lawmakers fell apart in the final hours of the 2007 session.

Muse said that he is more optimistic this time around.

‘‘I feel much more confident because we’ve got a timeline worked out,” Muse said. ‘‘We have 40 days to come up with recommendations, to do our homework and get a good deal passed that will keep quality health care in the county without anxiety.”

Not everyone is so confident. With Johnson yet to release details of the plan, some are starting to wonder if the hospital is doomed once again.

‘‘It has not been a particularly transparent process,” said Ebs Burnough, political director of 1199 Service Employees International Union, which represents workers in the hospital system. ‘‘It does lead everybody to think that we’re back in déjà vu.”

Silence rules among the Prince George’s County Council. At their Tuesday meeting, council members spent 30 minutes reviewing a 14-page list of state legislation affecting the county. The list made no mention of the current or proposed hospital legislation, and members refused to discuss it afterward.

‘‘We’re following the lead of the county executive,” said council Chairman Samuel H. Dean (D) of Mitchellville.

On Wednesday, Del. Benjamin S. Barnes said Johnson told delegates last week that the county is looking to transfer the county-owned Prince George’s Hospital Center from nonprofit Dimensions Healthcare to Ascension Health Care, a St. Louis-based Catholic chain that owns and runs 77 hospitals in the nation, including Providence Hospital in Washington.

Barnes confirmed reports that the plan would rely on $297 million in state aid and $198 million in county funds over five years.

The connection to the Catholic Church raises questions about whether the hospital would provide contraception or abortions or would honor living wills, Barnes said.

‘‘I do have some reservations about spending potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds to help an institution that doesn’t provide a full range of reproductive health options,” said Barnes (D-Dist. 21) of College Park.

Getting state legislators to sign on to the county proposal could be a tough sell. Lawmakers outside the delegation said they were uneasy with ending the session without a resolution that transfers ownership of the hospital.

‘‘It was our understanding that they were going to get out of it,” said Del. Norman H. Conway (D-Dist. 38B) of Salisbury last month.

That is what employees would like to see.

‘‘It is time to take the County Council out of the hospital business,” Burnough said. ‘‘This cycle has been going on for far too long.”

A deal hangs on getting the House and Senate delegations on board, Johnson spokesman John Erzen said Tuesday.

‘‘The executive and the County Council are on the same page,” Erzen said. ‘‘It’s a matter of talking to the rest of the public officials and getting everybody on the same page to say ‘OK, we have a plan we can all get behind and get implemented.’”

The challenge is getting people to back a plan at a time of economic uncertainty when officials ‘‘have to figure out where all the money is going to come from,” he said.

If the council is not able to work out a deal, Johnson would support a delegation bill to create an independent hospital authority to take over the system, Erzen said.

One bill, drafted by Del. Doyle L. Niemann (D-Dist. 47) of Mount Rainier, calls for the state to give 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.

One major sticking point over the authority proposal is the cost. Last year’s 11th-hour negotiations fell apart when County Council members began questioning their share of the plan.

County officials have said repeatedly they think the county’s share of the authority should be tempered by including the value of the county-owned hospital lands in Bowie, Cheverly and Laurel in the equation.