Health agency's fate faces deadline

Legislature must act by June 30 to keep review council alive. By Martha Raffaele | Of The Associated Press | In the vast realm of state government, an independent council charged with analyzing the cost and quality of health care in Pennsylvania is the little engine that could. The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council has churned out reams of reports on health maintenance organization performance, hospital finances, and infections contracted by hospitalized patients -- just to name a few -- since its inception in 1986. Yet it employs a little more than 40 people, and its $5 million budget is a mere sliver of the state's multibillion-dollar spending plan. And every few years, it relies on a new state law to keep it alive. This month, the clock is ticking on the agency known as ''PHC4.'' The General Assembly faces... [read full story]