The new merger, like the previous one, involved two financially strong hospitals and left a big question as to how poorer hospitals would survive.

Health care politics in New York involves powerful hospitals, the doctors' medical society, employee unions, an aggressive lobby for AIDS patients and other constituencies.

According to a 1995 report by Catholics for a Free Choice, a nonprofit group that supports abortion rights, 57 mergers or affiliations involving Catholic hospitals have occurred since 1990.

The real spending is likely to involve hospitals and the companies that sell them hardware and software and train them in how to use it.

There are reports that SEIU is beginning a comprehensive campaign which involves hospitals and other healthcare providers in and around Boston, Massachusetts.

We needn't involve hospitals.

We involve hospitals for transferring medication.

Today's crisis involves overcrowded hospitals that are facing critical shortages in their nursing staffs.

Last year, there were 29 mergers or affiliations nationally involving Catholic hospitals, according to Catholics for a Free Choice, a nonprofit group that supports abortion rights.

Public investments don't have the appeal of the past, when they involved new swimming pools, colleges and hospitals.