"A black eye for Pennsylvania"and an "outrageous" tactic are how two state officials have characterized the shut down of a highly respected state agency that studies health care issues and data. The shutdown was due to nothing more than a stalemate between Gov. Ed Rendell and Republicans in the state Senate.

Rendell and Senate Republicans are at odds over continuing the state's subsidization of some doctors' payments into a state malpractice insurance fund (Mcare)or using that money to expand health insurance coverage for about 300,000 uninsured Pennsylvanians. As a result of this dispute, the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4), a nationally recognized state agency with a modest, $5 million budget, has become a casualty.

The ugly political game between Rendell and Senate Republicans resulted in nearly all of the agency's 40-plus employees receiving termination notices last week. A few employees remain at PHC4's offices in Harrisburg this week for security purposes and to protect the health care data stored in computers there.

The agency's work is widely respect across the United States, and many health care policy experts have credited PHC4 with developing pioneering research and analysis that can save lives — and money. Some of the agency's most notable work involved in-depth studies of mortality and infection rates at hospitals across the state.

The landmark hospital-acquired infection study, involved the participation of Butler Memorial Hospital, along with a few others in the state.

But none of the nationally recognized, and potentially life-saving, work done by PHC4 matters to Rendell or state legislators who entered their long summer recess with PHC4 now collateral damage in a fight between the governor and some state lawmakers.

The council, which was formed in 1986, monitors hospital performance through the collection of 4 million records annually. Some of the analytical work done by PHC4 is not being duplicated by any other state in the nation. It's work is now experiencing a serious break in continuity, which can only be seen as having negative consequences.

Yet, despite its stellar reputation and the fact that the governor and lawmakers in the House and Senate all favor the agency's continuing its important work, a political stalemate over Mcare and expanding coverage for the uninsured shut down PHC4.

Due to its widely respected work and small $5 million budget, it's likely that the agency will eventually receive funding and be revived sometime in the fall, when lawmakers return from their long summer vacation. But in the meantime, the agency risks suffering a serious blow.

It would not be surprising to find that some of the agency's top people have decided to find work in an environment not subject to the whims of elected officials and political shenanigans like those seen in Harrisburg. If that happens, the agency will have suffered a serious setback, because people with the specialized skills needed by PHC4 are not easy to find.

The impact of the unnecessary shut down might not be known until September, but the political gamesmanship in Harrisburg between Rendell and Senate Republicans could cause real harm to one of the state's most respected agencies.

If the state budget had been settled a week or so before the June 30 deadline, instead of a few days after the deadline, there might have been time to resolve the dispute that has shut down PHC4. But on-time budgets is not how they do business in Harrisburg.

Between now and the time when PHC4 will probably be reauthorized, the state simply looks foolish for allowing a political dispute to shut down a small and highly respected state agency doing important work.

Once again, Pennsylvania and its political leaders look petty, partisan — and stupid.