BOSTON (AP) — Gov. Maura Healey said Thursday she is pressing Steward Health Care to adhere to a state Department of Public Health regulation that hospital owners must give 120 days notice before any medical facility can close in Massachusetts.

Healey made the comment a day after a bankruptcy judge allowed Steward’s decision to close two Massachusetts hospitals. Steward announced July 26 its plan to close the hospitals — Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center — on or around Aug. 31 because it had received no qualified bids for either facility.

The Dallas-based company — which announced its bankruptcy May 6 and two days later said it planned to sell off the 30 hospitals it operates nationwide — said it received qualified bids for six other hospitals it operates in Massachusetts.

“I’ve been clear with Steward, they need to stay open for 120 days. We need to have a smooth transition. Steward made the call to close those two hospitals,” Healey told reporters. “We have been hard at work looking to secure a deal that will ensure a smooth transition of ownership away from Steward to a responsible operator.”

Asked if requiring the hospitals to remain open for the 120 days is possible, Healey said “yes, yes, yes.”

“And the lenders have got to break the leases. We’ve got to break the leases. It’s ridiculous we’re in this situation because of the greed of Steward and (Steward CEO) Ralph de la Torre,” she said.

A spokesperson for Steward did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Healey was referring to lease payments Steward owes after selling their hospitals’ physical properties — including land and buildings — to another company. Both Steward and the state have argued that requiring potential buyers to assume those payments instead of negotiating their own leases — or buying the hospitals properties outright — was making it hard to transfer ownership of the hospitals.

Judge Christopher Lopez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston approved a motion by Steward on Wednesday to toss out the master lease binding the Massachusetts hospitals.

In a letter to Steward dated Tuesday, U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and other members of the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation also pointed to the state regulation requiring that a hospital formally notify the state of its intent to close its services 120 days before the proposed closure date, giving state health officials time to conduct public hearings.

“Steward’s financial crisis does not exempt the company from following the law, nor does it relieve Steward and its corporate enablers from their moral obligation to the public,” the lawmakers wrote.

Massachusetts has also agreed to provide about $30 million to help support the operations of six hospitals that Steward Health Care is trying to turn over to new owners.

The payments are advances on Medicaid funds that the state owes Steward and are being provided contingent upon an orderly movement toward new ownership. The $30 million is also contingent on Steward hitting milestones and cannot be used for rental payments, debt service or management fees.

The company’s hospitals are scattered across eight states.

A Senate committee voted last week to authorize an investigation into Steward’s bankruptcy and to subpoena de la Torre. The subpoena would compel de la Torre to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee at a hearing on Sept. 12.

Just after 8:30 a.m. on Thursday as the Senate prepared to vote on a major housing bond bill, Republican Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr took the floor. Members, he said, had gotten the $5.16 billion bill after pulling an all-nighter, with no time to review it, hours after formal legislative sessions were supposed to have concluded at midnight. “We can’t accept this,” Tarr said. “It can’t become normal. It can’t be institutionalized. Members deserve better than that. Citizens of the Commonwealth deserve better than that.”

Tarr is right. A legislative process that starts with months of inaction and ends in a flurry of overnight lawmaking — where important legislation is left on the cutting room floor simply because time expires — does not serve members or the public.

To its credit, the Legislature completed one of its most important tasks this session. Lawmakers reached agreement on a housing bond bill that will invest in building all kinds of housing that the state desperately needs to address sky-high prices, a homelessness crisis, and a cost of living that threatens to chase companies out of state. The bill will provide money for affordable housing, public housing, mixed-income housing, market-rate housing, and the conversion of commercial to residential properties, among other initiatives. It will allow accessory dwelling units to be built without special permits everywhere in Massachusetts.

While the housing bill was a top priority of Governor Maura Healey — who introduced her version of it last fall, giving the Legislature ample time — there were real differences between the versions passed by the House and Senate, and passage wasn’t assured until a compromise was reached early Thursday.

Lawmakers also passed a bill increasing access to benefits for veterans. They sent Healey a bill — which this board supported — modernizing parenthood laws in cases when a parent uses assisted reproduction or surrogacy and does not have a genetic tie to their child. They also sent Healey a bill phasing out PFAS chemicals in firefighting equipment.

But lawmakers failed to pass important bills related to health care, economic development, and the environment.

On health care, the House and Senate both passed complicated bills aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs, ensuring better oversight of for-profit health care companies, and improving long-term care facilities. But while the topics had been discussed for months, the House only passed its version of a prescription drug bill in July, and the Senate waited until July to pass its version of the long-term care and market oversight bills. Lawmakers were simultaneously considering bills related to substance use and maternal health, which presumably required expertise from lawmakers on health care committees.

House Speaker Ron Mariano said health care negotiators were trying to consider the hospital oversight and prescription drug bills together, and it simply became too difficult at the last minute. “I’d rather have a good bill than bills with errors and mistakes,” Mariano told reporters.

The economic development bill — a $3.40 billion bill in the House and a $2.86 billion bill in the Senate, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation — also fell through. Those bills included major investments in climate technology and life sciences. They were also loaded with policy priorities, many of which differed between the House and Senate, ranging from allowing happy hour to advancing a proposed Everett soccer stadium.

Legislation related to energy project siting also fell through, even though there was agreement on core parts of the bill; the Globe reported key negotiators blamed the collapse on differences related to natural gas usage policy.

The House and Senate each passed a flurry of last-minute bills in the last few days on topics as diverse as Boston property taxes, animal rights, and safe injection sites. But as Mariano himself said — a line Senate President Karen Spilka repeated back to him — passing a bill at the very last minute “tells me you’re not serious about getting the bill done.”

To be sure, there’s nothing like a deadline to motivate action. Key lawmakers defended the flurry of last-minute lawmaking as the way Beacon Hill has always done business. Representative Paul Donato, a Medford Democrat and a representative for 23 years, said lawmakers working on conference committees “have to stay here as long as we can until we figure that we can’t do anything else.” Mariano called all-night sessions “the nature of the business we’re in.” Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues said there is less overnight work today than 20 or 30 years ago when “working around the clock happened all the time.”

Caffeine-fueled levity powered lawmakers through the night. Representative Brian Ashe, a Longmeadow Democrat, said he would offer a quote — then snored loudly. Retiring Representative Smitty Pignatelli, a Lenox Democrat, said he was “humbled that in my last formal session my colleagues don’t want me to leave.”

But on a more serious note, Pignatelli called it “frustrating” and “disappointing” that lawmakers failed to agree on the economic development bill. “The bond bills give everybody across the Commonwealth opportunities to get some money and put it to work,” Pignatelli said. Ashe added, “Staying this late, sometimes you might expect that. What you hope is you get the results with it.”

While buying coffee at the State House café, Representative Rodney Elliott, a Lowell Democrat, called it “disappointing” given the urgency of climate change that lawmakers failed to pass an energy bill.

The Legislature will meet in informal sessions through the end of the year, so there will be opportunities to pass more bills — and lawmakers can and should keep working. Both Spilka and Mariano said they would. But the objection of a single lawmaker can derail a bill in informal sessions, and bond bills like the economic development bill can only pass in formal sessions since they require approval by a two-thirds majority of members in a roll call vote.

Legislative leaders did find time to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars in state budget earmarks benefiting their districts, the Globe reported. Democratic senators found time to hold a 9:30 a.m. fundraiser on July 31, according to State House News Service. It’s a shame they couldn’t find time to pass vital legislation affecting the health, environment, and economic prosperity of the people of Massachusetts.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s controversial plan to provide tax relief to homeowners by raising commercial tax rates stalled, and died for now, in the Massachusetts Senate, leaving the mayor disappointed and the bill’s critics taking a victory lap. 

Originally Published: August 1, 2024 at 8:00 p.m.