Stop intervention

I am like most people in the Pittsburgh area when I claim to be ignorant of the facts regarding the feud between Highmark and UPMC. On the surface, it seems pretty silly, but considering that thousands of people are being put in stressful situations because the two entities cannot come to an agreement, there is nothing silly going on here. Life and death hang on the outcome.

I am not happy with Attorney General Josh Shapiro stepping in to judge the fairness, or unfairness of the argument (Feb. 8, “State Takes UPMC to Court”). I don’t like government at any level acting as the final arbitrator of these situations. This is especially true when it comes to health care. The track record of government in similar situations is not good. Not only that, I am under the impression that state legislators are the ones that decide upon laws, write bills and submit them to the governor for signing, not the attorney general.

I may be mistaken because the legislature may have indeed granted the attorney general’s office to act in this case. I have seen this occur on a federal level and it tastes no better. Lawmakers are given that title for a reason. They avoid being held responsible for laws that result in poor consequences by delegating this sort of responsibility.

I would offer that Mr. Shaprio might serve us better if he were to set up impartial instructors to give people a better and unbiased comparison of services available from all insurance companies throughout the commonwealth, which would include the cost of these policies.