PROVIDENCE — A push by some lawmakers to rein in the pay of top hospital executives died as the General Assembly approached the end of the current session.

The full Senate had passed a bill that would have limited the compensation of any hospital administrator to no more than 110 percent of what their counterparts are paid elsewhere in the region. But the bill later became stalled in the House Corporations Committee.

“The feeling on the Corporations Committee was that certain hospital executives may be making a great deal of money, that there was concern about that, but they felt, more importantly, that the General Assembly should not be micromanaging the financial affairs of hospitals,” Larry Berman, a spokesman for the House, said after conferring with committee Chairman Brian Patrick Kennedy, D-Hopkinton.

A previous version of the bill was heard in both the House and Senate. It would have capped hospital executives’ pay to no more than 2½ times the salary of the governor. The governor’s salary is $117,817, resulting in a cap of $294,542.

Sen. Michael J. McCaffrey, D-Warwick, substituted an amended version of his original bill after meeting with hospital representatives. The new version called for limiting the executives’ pay to 110 percent of the “Northeast regional average compensation level for comparable personnel serving in comparable hospitals.” The Senate passed it and forwarded to House Corporations.

McCaffrey sponsored his first version early in the year as a recession-weary nation expressed anger at CEO pay on Wall Street and after he learned of the salaries of administrators of taxpayer-supported hospitals in Rhode Island, which were published in a Providence Phoenix article. The highest-paid, according to 2007 tax returns, was George Vecchione, CEO of the Lifespan Hospital Network, whose total compensation was $2.96 million, more than what his counterparts at larger Boston hospitals received.

Nearly every hospital administrator in 2006 would have exceeded the cap tied to the governor’s pay. Their salary and benefits ranged from a low of $281,440 for Louis Giancola, CEO of South County Hospital, to $1.4 million for John Hynes, CEO of Care New England, the second most highly compensated hospital executive after Vecchione.

The House held a hearing on the original bill, sponsored by Rep. Peter Kilmartin, which was tied to the governor’s pay. But it did not hold a hearing on McCaffrey’s substitute version.

“The committee pointed out that while [President] Obama is looking to cap bank executives [pay], hospitals aren’t looking for a bailout. That’s a separate situation,” Berman, the House spokesman, said.

rsalit@projo.com