Published: July 03, 2009 06:34 pm         

TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: An unhealthy dispute

High stakes for community in Union-Anthem stalemate

As any health-care provider (or wise grandmother) can attest, prolonged stress is bad for the body, mind and spirit. A steady diet of fear and anxiety can make people sick.

With that in mind, we urge the Union Hospital Health Group and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield to sit down in earnest and figure out a way to resolve their contract differences.

The current war of words and threats over Union’s billing practices for off-site medical care is stressing out thousands of patient-consumers in Indiana and Illinois. Many of these people are cancer patients, receiving chemotherapy and other treatments for their disease. The last thing they need, especially in this economy, is a large dose of medical insurance worries to further threaten their immune systems.

As of today, the huge medical facility and the even bigger health insurance provider have 26 full days to come to terms before the current contract expires. That is, of course, if you count weekends, which we most certainly do. Rather than pronounce the situation all-but hopeless, as Union CEO David Doerr did in a letter to patients last week, Anthem and the hospital group should use every available moment remaining to salvage their long-standing business bond.

Admittedly, the Tribune-Star has a dog in this fight: Along with employees of the City of Terre Haute, the government and school corporation of Vigo County, and the extrusion technology company, AET, this newspaper’s employees receive their health care benefits through an Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield carrier. So do approximately 2.5 million Hoosiers. If no contract is forged by July 31, and Union Hospital Health Group is no longer in-network for Anthem customers, the fallout will be widespread.

The newspaper’s dilemma does not mean we side with Anthem — or with the hospital group. Like most contract disputes, this one is complicated and years in the making. Both entities have used propaganda tactics and appealed to the public to raise its unhappy voice — against the other side.

Despite a fair amount of quiet maneuvering and reconfiguring of its billing system, which has netted Union millions of dollars in revenue, the hospital has portrayed itself as the little good guy up against the heartless corporate giant. As Doerr’s June 30 letter put it, “Maybe this is what healthcare has come to, with powerful insurance companies like Anthem deciding what care people deserve and what we can provide.”

Maybe? Is there an American adult alive who doesn’t know that the insurance industry has long dictated who gets what kind of care and for how much?

As for Anthem, in its effort to paint Union as the sneaky villain in this story, its negotiators conveniently omit the fact that the company is battling other health care providers, including the 11-facility St. Francis Hospital group in Indianapolis, over the same “billing under arrangements” issue that is at the heart of the dispute with Union.

In addition, Anthem is a behemoth, which in Indiana resides under the 14-state WellPoint umbrella. WellPoint is traded on the New York Stock Exchange; its executive salaries are in the millions and its CEO, Angela Braley, was named by Forbes last year as the fourth most powerful woman in the world.

So, the side we take in this argument is the community’s. The people of this area need a viable, well-funded Union Hospital complex and they need Union’s largest non-government insurer, Anthem, to be inside the hospital’s network.

As time grows short, and the community’s stress levels rise, we’d like to see Union Hospital representatives and those from Anthem voluntarily lock themselves in a windowless room and vow not to emerge until they have a deal. Perhaps an experienced, effective and deeply interested party such as Vigo County School Corp. Superintendent Dan Tanoos could monitor the talks and regularly remind both sides that they exist to make their patient-customers well, not sick.