On tuesday, the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century, US released the plan recommending the elimination of about 20 hospitals through closings, mergers and conversions to other uses. After this, there are mixed reaction for this consolidation plan in US.
Gov. George E. Pataki and Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer endorsed a plan to close or shrink dozens of hospitals and nursing homes across the state. Their support means that it will be up to the Legislature to decide whether to block the proposed downsizings.
Despite strenuous protests from some legislators whose districts include the affected institutions, lawmakers and top aides in both the Senate and the Assembly said that even before the current and future governors spoke out, the prevailing sense in Albany was that the Legislature ? the Republican-controlled Senate, in particular ? would not stand in the way of the proposed changes.
So far, the hospital groups and the u nion have reserved judgment, as have the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.