HARRISBURG — In the vast realm of state government, an independent council charged with analyzing the cost and quality of health care in Pennsylvania is the little engine that could.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council has churned out reams of reports on health maintenance organization performance, hospital finances, and infections contracted by hospitalized patients — just to name a few — since its inception in 1986.

Yet it employs a little more than 40 people, and its $5 million budget is a mere sliver of the state's multibillion-dollar spending plan. And every few years, it relies on a new state law to keep it alive.

This month, the clock is ticking on the agency known as "PHC4." The General Assembly faces a June 30 deadline to pass legislation that will allow the council to continue its number-crunching.

"We're concerned about the timetable here, and the urgency of getting this done," council spokesman Joe Martin said.

Business advocates and labor unions say the reports give them valuable information that helps guide their health care plans.

Lawmakers generally favor the council's continued existence, which is also supported by Gov. Ed Rendell's administration, organized labor, and lobbying groups for businesses, doctors and hospitals.

But neither the House nor the Senate has passed a bill, and the reauthorization could be delayed if the chambers cannot agree before June 30 on details such as how long to extend council's shelf life and whether to expand its data-gathering responsibilities.

One bill awaiting a vote by the Senate Public Health & Welfare Committee would simply reauthorize the council through June 30, 2018. A version awaiting consideration by the full House calls for extending the council for seven years, renaming it the Health Care Cost Containment and Comparison Council, and requiring it to create an Internet database allowing consumers to compare the prices doctors charge for common medical treatments.

The Senate committee's chairman, Edwin Erickson, said he favors limiting the council's extension to five years because it would give the General Assembly the ability to re-evaluate the council's structure and activities more frequently and make any necessary changes.

The last reauthorization debate in 2003 left the agency in limbo for more than two weeks because a final bill wasn't signed by Rendell until mid-July.