S.F. supes take hard look at hospital costs

[alp227]

(04-29) 18:09 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Projected annual health care costs of nearly $500 million to cover San Francisco's employees and retirees this year prompted a Board of Supervisors committee Thursday to take a hard look at hospital pricing and consolidation in the city.

Sutter Health controls 44 percent of the hospital beds in San Francisco, followed by Catholic Healthcare West with 28 percent and UCSF with 26 percent, according to the Pacific Business Group on Health, a San Francisco coalition that represents large employers statewide. The statistics excluded numbers for San Francisco General and Kaisier.

That leaves less room for negotiation and competition. "Controlling 44 percent of the beds in the city says you can't live without it," David Hopkins, the coalition group's senior adviser.

The supervisors invited health care experts to speak about the dynamics of hospital costs, particularly the dramatic price difference between Northern and Southern California. Media reports have estimated that San Francisco costs as much as 70 percent more per patient per day than Los Angeles.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/28/BAEH1J9C0R.DT

[KamaAina]

1. Meanwhile, SF just spent $$$millions to upgrade one of the country's few city-run nursing homes

to wit, Laguna Honda, many of whose inmates residents are people under age 65 with disabilities, who just want to get placed in the community and get on with their lives. And under the Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., it is their civil right to do so.