Just A Status Conference On Partners Deal, But Health Care History

Health care history unfolds in Suffolk Superior Court today. It may just be a status conference, but it could still be a heck of a show because...

1) The hearing is about a deal that many experts say will shape health care in Massachusetts for a decade or longer. It would limit, but not stop, the expansion of Partners HealthCare, already the largest hospital/physician network in the state.

2) There are some dramatic characters.

• Attorney General Martha Coakley, who's running for governor, and taking a lot of heat for allegedly letting Partners off too easily. Coakley has repeatedly said she won many more concessions from Partners by negotiating than she would have by suing to try and stop Partners' expansion. Her court filing is here.

• Some of the city's top attorneys, representing Partners, the two hospitals it wants to acquire and dozens of supporters and opponents of the deal.

• Judge Janet Sanders, who has not, as far as I can tell, ever worked in health care, signaled that she may need expert help reviewing the voluminous materials filed about this agreement. And while Partners, South Shore Hospital and Hallmark Health are anxious to move ahead with their mergers, Sanders said on Friday that "the issues raised are too important to be dealt with hastily."

Alerts about protests outside the courthouse went out last week.

But there's another reason that health care industry watchers toss around words like "historic" or "milestone" in conversations about today's hearing and the proceedings before Judge Sanders. This level of scrutiny — of one hospital system merging with another — is just very, very unusual in Massachusetts or elsewhere. It's all triggered by the 2012 law that focuses on controlling health care costs. We are watching the sausage get made. It isn't pretty or easy to decipher, but it is more open than anything I think we've seen before.