TV ads and legislation take aim at IHC

IHC, already targeted in legislation for its "monopoly" in health care, is being accused of dragging families struck by catastrophic illness into bankruptcy.

A group of physicians has commissioned Morpheus Media of Orem to produce a series of television ads profiling families they say have been victimized by the health-care giant.

Morpheus Media was founded by Utah documentary filmmaker Steven DeVore, who is also a player in the push to pass SB34, which would be Utah's version of an "any willing provider" law.

That legislation is squarely aimed at IHC and supported by critics who say its stranglehold on the market subjects patients to lack of health-care choices, squeezes out competent physicians and also jeopardizes the ability of medical equipment companies to survive. The measure would allow residents to go to a doctor outside their insurance plan as long as the provider would accept 95 percent of the reimbursement rate.

SB34, which many say is setting up to be a huge fight on Capitol Hill, has advanced out of committee and is scheduled for debate before the full Senate. Opponents are trying to put a huge fiscal note on the bill, which, it is predicted, would kill the measure.

DeVore said the ad campaign is completely separate from the push to pass SB34, although both efforts have some common supporters.

The campaign, "Charities Don't Sue, Do They?" is based on DeVore's study of Utah bankruptcy records from December 2003. He said his survey of more than 1,700 filings revealed 300 Utah families who had filed for bankruptcy because of IHC collection efforts.

"You can tell because there is this whole litany of bills that tell the story," he said.

IHC spokesman Daron Cowley said the ads are "a smear campaign based on untruths. What they are alleging is simply untrue."

DeVore, he added, is a "professional critic" of IHC who repeatedly dredges up numbers from a supposed study that has no scientific basis.

"An independent study surveying the same time period does not show that," Cowley said.

Although IHC issues 6 million bills a year, Cowley said the chance of those recipients ending up in court is one in 9,000. And while the campaign implies IHC is not really charitable, Cowley said government entities, time after time, have held the organization up to scrutiny and found otherwise.