Oakland, Calif.-based Kasier Permanente's takeover of Honolulu-based Hawaii Health Systems will be pushed back to July 2017 after negotiations between the state and unions stalled, according to the Tribune-Herald.
The negotiation breakdown followed lawsuits from United Public Workers and the state Employee Retirement System, which said the deal violated the system's tax-exempt status and the retirement benefits of nearly 120,000 public workers.
Negotiations centered around the hospital employees' union contracts, which expire July 30, 2017. Hospital officials and union representatives sought to amend the contracts so the transition could happen by the original Nov. 6, 2017 date, according to the article.
Because of the deadlock in negotiations, Maui Health System officials decided to push back the transition date to July 1, 2017, to allow enough time for both sides to come to an agreement.
The Hawaiian state legislature passed a law to turnover Hawaii Health System to private ownership in 2015.
State officials said the partnership with Kaiser is designed to reinvigorate the state's safety net of public hospitals, which require tens of millions of dollars of annual state funding and require repeated emergency appropriations to keep funding, according to the article.