Two Hundred Sixty Percent

Next Tuesday, Indiana puts a number on the hospital. Not a premium. A price.

Hospitals that are not already part of a giant nonprofit system have to offer employers a direct contract at no more than 260 percent of what Medicare pays. Miss it and the fine is ten thousand dollars a day. That is state law from last year, not a press release. The five big systems already had to do this last September. Next week the rest of the state’s hospitals join them.

That is not a Kansas figure. I will not pretend Wichita already has this statute. What travels is the distinction. A renewal letter is a percentage and a network. This is a contract that says what the hospital costs.

We have been saying this in clinic for years. Insurance is a tool for the wreck, not for the oil change. Primary care should never have been stuffed into a claims machine. Hospitals should never have been allowed to hide the invoice inside a network. Indiana just made the hospital name the price to the people who actually pay the bill.

The number is 260. The penalty is ten thousand a day. That is a price you can read before you get the bill.