Health-care coalition too secretive?

Individuals and groups who join the Utah Healthcare Coalition will have to decide for themselves if they want to be known publicly, says president Roger Ball. He has no intention of naming them.

And that has some critics and even a former member wondering if the group's agenda is as simple as Ball proclaims: affordable, accessible care and a more efficient system.

The coalition was formed last year to represent consumers before the Privately Owned Health Care Organization Task Force, created by the Utah Legislature amid questions about health-care delivery in Utah. Part of that discussion involved Intermountain Healthcare's dominance in the marketplace and charitable care. Lawmakers scrapped a bill that could have forced a divorce between the medical-delivery and health-insurance parts of the corporation. Instead, legislators created the panel to study various issues, many not focusing on the system best known as IHC.

A couple of well-known corporations, which both collaborate and compete with IHC at times, have already said they are members of the group. Now, amid the controversy, at least one plans to withdraw.

MountainStar, owner of St. Mark's, Timpanogos and other hospitals, paid a $400 membership fee to join what has been billed as a patient advocacy group. "We became members but are not on the board and are not in any of the policy-making forums," says spokeswoman Deb Reiner. MountainStar plans to drop its membership, citing concerns that the organization is "too secretive, and we are not about secrecy."

Regence BlueCross Blue Shield of Utah, on the other hand, has no intention of leaving.

"We're proud to be a member of the coalition, and any group that would encourage greater public dialogue on how to improve the health-care system is one we want to be part of," says Regence spokeswoman Kathleen Murphy.

The coalition has received extra public attention this week after a KSL News story said the nonprofit 501(c)4 — the designation for a nonprofit "social welfare" organization — had not registered with the Department of Commerce, which Ball confirms. He says fixing that is his first priority. Questions were also raised about a possible hidden agenda.

"Until I got a letter just over a week ago from the division, I had no idea that the coalition even needed to register with them," says Ball, who took the group's helm a few months ago. It registered and filed bylaws and articles of incorporation with the Utah Division of Corporations last summer, he says.