A judge has again delayed a hearing on the state's controversial settlement with Partners Healthcare over its merger with three smaller hospitals after Attorney General Martha Coakley asked for more time to renegotiate the pact, as a health panel warned the mega-deal could jack up medical costs by as much as $50 million a year.
The next hearing on the deal was pushed back from Aug. 5 to Sept. 29 yesterday after Coakley filed a motion asking for a delay until the state's Health Policy Commission issues a final report on Partners' proposed merger with South Shore Hospital and Hallmark Health System, which operates Lawrence Memorial and Melrose-Wakefield hospitals.
Coakley suggested yesterday her office could negotiate another agreement with the health care goliath, which employs 6,500 doctors and runs eight acute-care hospitals, including Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's.
"Our office always retained the option to seek to renegotiate portions of this agreement as it relates to Hallmark following a final report by the Health Policy Commission," said spokesman Brad Puffer.
Meanwhile, the state health panel yesterday warned in public comments sent to Coakley that the Partners takeover of the three hospitals would boost costs by between $38.5 million and $49 million for the state's top three insurance companies.
Partners disputes the South Shore Hospital numbers, arguing that savings associated with privately insured patients that the commission failed to calculate would save $158 million.
Coakley's office insists the settlement will control health costs better than any lawsuit could.
Coakley, the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, has come under fire from her two rivals over the Partners deal.
Pediatrician Donald Berwick launched an online petition against the settlement this week, which his campaign claims garnered 1,000 signatures in just 24 hours. State Treasurer Steve Grossman yesterday wrote a letter to Coakley, saying: "Your rhetoric as attorney general has emphasized transparency and the lowering of health care costs. But in negotiating this current deal, you have fallen far short of each of those objectives."
Coakley's campaign fired back, saying, "Steve Grossman ... is playing politics by changing his position by the day in a desperate attempt to find another way to attack Martha Coakley, regardless of the facts."
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