While Penn administrators were jubilant over a $100 million gift given to Penn Medicine last month, a few community organizations are not.
The Philadelphia Unemployment Project and the Action Alliance of Senior Citizens of Greater Philadelphia feel that the funds, intended to support the floundering University Health System, should be used towards the benefit of low-income patients. The two organizations filed a petition to stop the transfer of the money.
The petition maintains that the grant to the University defies the principles instituted by the donors, the Philadelphia Health Care Trust, and calls for a vast overhaul of the plan or a complete repossession of the funds.
Jonathan Stein, the general counsel for the petitioners, claims that the transfer of funds violates the original premises of the PHCT.
"More significant is that this violates the intentions of the creation of the trust," Stein said. "There are no provisions made for low-income people whatsoever."
"Secondly, the trust was never meant to benefit only one institution," Stein continued, "rather, to support a variety of health care systems."
Under an arrangement made last January between Penn Medicine and PHCT Chairman Bernard Korman, 50 percent of the interest generated by the funds of the PHCT will be allotted to Penn Medicine for the next three years. Following those years, the percentage will increase in 10 percent increments, and eventually, in 2009, the entirety of the funds will be transferred to Penn Medicine.
Under the arrangement, Korman would also become vice chairman of the Penn Medicine Board and chairman of finance.
However, before the transfer is finalized, the arrangement, like all funds from dissolved corporations, must be approved by the Court of Common Pleas Orphan's Court Division. The petition was brought before the Orphan's court to prevent the nearly assured approval of the transfer.
The PHCT is a charitable association trust created when the Graduate Health System separated from Penn's health system, and the PHCT took over Graduate's profits.
The trust was created to best benefit those in Philadelphia who could not afford or do not receive adequate health-care systems, with emphasis on low-income Philadelphia area residents.
Penn Medicine, however, would use the money from the trust to further education, research and health care.
The petition claims that many of the AASCP and PUP members are without the means to receive decent health care and represent a significant number of the 1.2 million Pennsylvanians without health insurance.
University General Counsel Wendy White says that Penn will "take their concerns seriously."
However, after Thursday's first meeting between the petitioner's coalition and Penn Medicine, White does not believe that the petition poses any significant problems.
White desires to work with the coalition, rather than against it, despite the problems the petition poses.
"What I'm hoping is that we can continue to work with the coalition that Stein introduced me to today."
White, however, disagrees with the premise that Penn does not fulfill a non-profit position.
'The University plans on important charitable functions in the Philadelphia community," White noted.
Stein does not agree entirely, but does believe that something can be worked out between the two groups.
"We'd like to see the money go to district health systems, which provide a more integrated health system and health care access to a larger number of people," Stein said. "Penn could certainly have a significant role in a system like that."
