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AbsentEmpire t1_iya320b wrote

Reply to comment by Der_Missionar in As Western Pa. hospitals expand, fears grow over higher health care costs, and Wolf's plan to address the situation by Der_Missionar

Why would UPMC insurance cover practices they don't own?

It's a smart business move by them to consolidate the market to themselves if they want to be around and offering advanced procedures in another decade.

This is the inevitable outcome of having health policy that pretends that a free market can exist in the health care industry.

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Der_Missionar OP t1_iya9asx wrote

It's actually VERY NEW to have an insurance company OWN the hospitals and the doctors offices. Up until a few years ago, this never happened.
Insurance was insurance, hospitals and doctors were hospitals and doctors. Now it's all intermingled. So... That's an ongoing discussion in the government. Don't you remember the BIG TODO with UPMC refusing to cover anything in Allegheny Health Network?

This is the stuff of anti-trust lawsuits going on right now.

So, yeah, insurance never owned the doctors offices and hospitals before.

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