In this case, my sympathies lie (ever so slightly) in favor of UnitedHealth Group, if only because UHG is attempting to insert the condition in a privately negotiated contract, whereas the hospital consortium is running to the state government to stop it (as other hospitals in Tennessee have done, according to the article).

However, one expert quoted in the article described this as a “showdown between corporate oligopolies”. That may be a little extreme, but it brings us to the gist of the issue. As long as we rely on a third party to pay for our medical services, piece by piece, it will be subject to micro-management.

I expect that if every American were free to buy a health-insurance policy of his or her own choice, a catastrophic illness or accident that required hospitalization would result in a cash pay-out by the insurer, and the patient would go to whichever hospital he preferred. There would be little or no need for wasting time and effort negotiating “networks.”

But that’s just one man’s opinion: Government needs to give that money and power to patients, and then we’ll find out.