State proposes ban on HMO billing practice - California

What happens when you need emergency care and go to a hospital outside of your contract with you health insurance...read on....in once case an accident occurred...total bill was $53,000.00....Anthem Blue Cross paid $25,000.00...big balance left for the insured...hospital and insurance company said privacy laws prevented any comments on the claim...Prime Health Care suing Kaiser, Kaiser not paying the difference...California Medical Association taking action to eliminate...back to the same old story...will somebody pay the bill....do you stand to lose your house, if you are taken to a facility out of network with the substantial billing that accumulates while the insurers create bill backs to what is not "covered"....BD

State officials, hospitals and doctors are locked in a dispute over whether some patients can be charged if they are taken to an emergency room outside of their health care network. For some, that bill can be a couple of hundred dollars, but for others it can reach into the thousands.
The ban proposed by the California Department of Managed Health Care would affect members of HMOs, such as Kaiser Permanente, not members of other kinds of insurance plans. The department only regulates HMOs. Administrators and hospital-based doctors say the state should be targeting insurance companies.
Dr. Richard Frankenstein, president of the California Medical Association, said the organization, which represents 35,000 doctors, will fight the state Managed Health Care Department's ban."They ought to be regulating the insurance companies, not the doctors, which it does not have the authority to do," he said. "We see this as a $500 million transfer from patients to insurance companies, and the insurance companies aren't paying the bill."