Greedy Trial Lawyer
HCA And United Healthcare Having Trouble Dividing The Spoils
Category: In Your Face
It is not quite the O. J. Simpson Trial of the Century, but the looming court cases throughout the country pitting HCA against United Healthcare should be fascinating to follow. Basically, HCA wants to make more money and, surprise, United HealthCare wants to make more money.
My suggestion is that one of the companies should buy the other. Then, the HCA-United All-In-One Health Service can just continue gouging the public without all the internal strife.
United HealthCare sues HCA over tactics
Denver contract expired in August; talks have stalledUnited HealthCare has sued HCA Inc. over what it sees as hardball negotiating tactics in an important Western market, upping the ante in a bitter fight over rates there.
United, the nation's No. 2 health insurer, asked a Colorado judge Monday to bar HCA from engaging in anti-competitive behavior that it says is eroding its business in the Denver area.
United's suit accuses HCA of using its dominance in Denver to wring unfair rates from United and other health insurers.
The dispute is one of several contentious battles between HCA and health insurance companies around the country. HCA and United are at odds in Miami, for instance, and HCA is battling another insurance company in Las Vegas over rates.
According to United's lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Denver, HCA has demanded a 35 percent increase in rates for commercial business over the next four years. United, which has about 400,000 customers in the city, says it has insisted on rates that are closer to the rate of inflation.
The disparity led HCA to cancel its contracts with United, effective Aug. 31.
As that date approached, HCA began using tactics that exploited its power in Denver -- the chain owns seven hospitals, 11 ambulatory surgery centers, 30 outpatient clinics and 70 percent of the city's mammography services -- and violated Colorado and federal antitrust laws, United says in the suit.
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