Health care impasse addressed
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Longtime activist Mike Stout speaks out against both UPMC and Highmark.
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Representatives of UPMC and Highmark went before members of the community Thursday night to explain their positions in what was described as "a bitter divorce."
But state Sen. Jim Ferlo, who organized the town hall forum, said he was hesitant to embrace such an analogy because the separation of the two health-care institutions is not a given.
"There are no angels on either side. They both have fine attributes," Mr. Ferlo told the 200 people gathered in the Banquet Hall at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in Oakland. "But they are fighting for their own survival, and that may or may not be in the best for the consumers.
"The missing ingredient so far in this war is the voice of health-care recipients."
The current contract between Highmark, the region's largest health insurer, and UPMC, the largest hospital system, expires June 30. UPMC ended contract talks this spring after learning Highmark planned to acquire the troubled West Penn Allegheny Health System, UPMC's largest local competitor.
"We don't have to renew our contract with Highmark, and we're not going to renew our contract with Highmark because of that," said W. Thomas McGough Jr., UPMC's chief legal officer. "It will be as disruptive as Highmark wants it."
Dan O'Malley, Highmark's western region market president, said the company wants to negotiate a new contract and that the competition would benefit consumers.
"No health care organization or institution should be allowed to or have the power to limit access of millions of people to critical community asset institutions that have been supported by taxpayers and philanthropy," he said. "They are not anyone's private property."
Mr. McGough said UPMC should not negotiate a contract with a competitor because "experts will tell you that when competitors sit down in a room, what comes out is usually not good for the consumers. What comes out is good for the competitors."
First Published September 9, 2011 7:34 am
