Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Cook County officials say the county health system is in critical condition, and options are being presented to resuscitate hundreds of jobs and crucial programs.

The recommendations come from a blue ribbon panel set up by County Board President Todd Stroger. They say they are open to the idea of the county Bureau of Health Services being independently run.

Currently, the bureau is under direct control of the County Board president. With billing and revenue, county officials said they had no choice but to bring together a blue ribbon panel to review the situation.

The panel recommended that Cook County create an independent board to run health facilities, including Stroger Hospital.

As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, even though the county tried and abandoned that idea three decades ago it now has powerful new backing.

Something similar was done years ago, but the county opted out because of problems reining in the independent board. But county commissioners Tony Peraica (R-16th) and Mike Quigley (D-10th) said a switch to an independent board is needed again so health care can run more efficiently.

Peraica said with the county overseeing everything directly, the Bureau of Health Services has been prone to patronage, corruption and political problems.

"We must get our house in order, and the first step is to put together a management team with a nationally-recognized expert in public health care at the top, who's going to be able to run the system on a day-to-day basis without intervention of the president's office," Peraica said.

"We're also missing a lot of money that's there in the health bureau that we're not collecting in revenues," Quigley said. "So you have a long way to go for this budget."

At the Cook County Health Bureau's Provident Hospital, the suggestion that an independent board should operate the system was welcomed by Ronald McIntyre. He had just dropped off his wife for a mammogram.

"I think the politicians has just messed it up," McIntyre said. "It shouldn't be in the health care. It shouldn't be in government."

A few hours earlier at a meeting of the Cook County Board, the president and CEO of Rush University Medical Center delivered dozens of recommendations for the financially troubled county health system. Chief among them: an independent panel should run the hospitals and health clinics, with taxpayers continuing to foot the bill.

"Whether it comes from one source or another, more revenue's gonna be needed," Dr. Larry Goodman said.

Goodman's 10-member panel said any additional cost-cutting would be too risky right now, implying that increasing taxes is the way to fill a growing budget hole that is now nearly $90 million. If not, county doctors warned, there could be dire consequences.   

"We shouldn't be talking about any more cuts," said Dr. Janice Benson of Provident Hospital. "We should be expanding, until we get a better solution from somebody else."

Skeptics, though, claim there is still huge waste in the county health system.

"We've got tens of millions of dollars of waste and patronage," said County Commissioner Forest Claypool. "The Health Bureau is legendary as being a patronage dumping ground."

"Delay is going to cause a catastrophe," said Peraica said. "I don't believe the solution is necessarily going to be to throw more money at the problem."

It was Sen. Richard Durbin's idea to create the blue-ribbon panel that came up with these recommendations. He warned that reforms are necessary in order to get new federal funds for county health care.

CBS 2's Mike Flannery and Kristyn Hartman contributed to this report.

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