Health panel must learn from past

When Cook County commissioners adopted a sales tax increase recently to resolve the 2008 budget deficit, the deal included a last-minute agreement to transfer control of the health services to an independent oversight panel.

Once before, the county board ceded authority to run Cook County Hospital and its satellites to an independent governing body. After a decade of erratic management, that commission was dissolved.

In 1969, as governor of Illinois, Richard Ogilvie created a nine-person Health and Hospitals Governing Commission to run the hospital.

The county board retained control of the health budget; a prospective budget submitted by the commission had to be approved by the board annually.

Commission members were civic-minded individuals who showed little interest in policy struggles or hospital micro-management.

But trust between the governing commission and medical staff deteriorated quickly. Several of County's best doctors resigned and there was a strike by residents demanding improvements in hospital conditions.

By 1979, the commission was over $80 million in debt and could not meet the weekly payroll.

Amid tales of administrative extravagance, an investigation launched by Gov. James Thompson found the commission guilty of fiscal mismanagement and a failure of long-range planning. The commission was abolished and control of the hospital was returned to the county board.

A new oversight panel must do more than simply change the administrative structure or it risks a repeat of the 1970s experience. It recalls the old definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Cory Franklin

Wilmette