Hard calls for hospitals

Boston Medical Center and Cambridge Health Alliance, two big hospital groups that treat lots of poor patients, are struggling in the age of health care reform.

In fact, all Massachusetts hospitals that treat a large share of poor patients rightly feel they got the short end of the stick in the state’s closely watched experiment to insure the health of almost everyone. Public financial support for those hospitals suffered when money was redirected toward other reform priorities.

Hospital executives in Boston and Cambridge have adopted radically different strategies to deal with the money squeeze. The question: Who got it right?