The Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century recommended that New York State close nine hospitals, cut 7,200 hospital and nursing-home beds, and develop new home- and community-based services to meet future health care needs.  They also urged state leaders to consider broader changes: comprehensive restructuring of health-care financing, expanded health-insurance coverage, and privatization of three State University teaching hospitals.

The recommendations would reduce Medicaid costs by an estimated $249 million a year, with similar savings for employers and other private purchasers of health insurance. Hospitals and other service providers would reap an estimated $721 million annually that could be used to help pay restructuring and other costs.

Recommendations for closure or restructuring affect one in four hospitals statewide and would eliminate 4,200 beds, 7 percent of current hospital capacity. Some 3,000 nursing-home beds, 3 percent of the statewide total, would be eliminated while more than 1,000 new openings for long-term care would be created in non-institutional settings.

The commission urged state leaders to undertake a “comprehensive review” of financing policies that affect hospitals and other health care providers as well as health-insurance purchasers and consumers.   Its report also called for expansion of primary-care capacity; development of “hybrid” facilities; analysis of privatizing SUNY teaching hospitals at Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse; greater use of technology; and a broad review of “the future role of county-owned and operated nursing homes.”

Since the Legislature did not act to reject the recommendations, the State Health Department is charged with implementing the recommendations starting in 2007. However, the state Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order to block implementation because of a lawsuit filed charging that the legislation that created the Berger Commission was unconstitutional.  More to come, to be sure.

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