Washington wants to concoct measures to end “surprise billing,” which lawmakers inadvertently caused in the first place (“Trump Backs Ending Surprise Medical Bills,” U.S. News, May 10). Networks are the offshoot of Medicare price fixing in 1986. When insurance companies saw that hospitals and physicians would accept lower payments in order to serve the Medicare population, they developed networks of “preferred providers,” who agreed to a reduction in payment for access to the insured. Inevitably, cost shifting occurred, resulting in inflated prices to withstand the discounts. Networks...

Source: Wall Street Journal May 19, 2019 16:18 UTC