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Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, intends to introduce a bill he says will make the finances of tax-exempt Intermountain Healthcare transparent and open to public scrutiny.
The bill, he said Wednesday, would open a much-needed window into Utah's biggest health care provider and private employer. But Buttars thinks it will also be vigorously opposed by Salt Lake City-based Intermountain, which he accused of exerting too much influence on his fellow lawmakers.
"These guys have connections with too many legislators and they are too damn strong," the conservative Republican said during a press conference called by the Utah Coalition for Patient and Physician Rights, a little-known group hoping to challenge Intermountain's tax-exempt status.
While Intermountain representatives barred from the conference hovered outside a meeting room at Utah's Capitol, Buttars predicted the company would fight hard during the 2010 legislative session to kill his bill.
"Watch ... it will be jihad to the highest level," Buttars said.
The bill would force Intermountain to reveal what it pays its top executives and show what its tax bill would be if the Legislature removed its coveted tax-exempt status.
"Transparency would answer most of these questions. You have no transparency in Intermountain," the conservative Republican said.
Intermountain spokesman Daron Cowley said he couldn't comment on Buttars' bill because nobody at the company
"He's not talked to us and we weren't even allowed in the meeting, so it's hard to comment on something that he hasn't been willing to share," Cowley said.
Coalition spokesman Paul Winterton, a Sandy orthopedic surgeon, said Intermountain acts as a monopoly, using its tax-exempt status to smother competition from other health care providers and hurting their patients.
"A competitive marketplace is necessary to driving down health costs," Winterton said. "In Utah, IHC's bully tactics prevent consumers from getting the choice and treatment they deserve."
Asked to describe the coalition, known also as UtahCPR, Winterton declined to say who its members are or how big it is.
"I don't know much about them. The organization is who they are," the spokesman said.
A Google search showed that UtahCPR's address is at the Riverwoods Imaging Center in Provo. Wendell Gibby, a physician and close friend of Buttars, is the center's director.
Intermountain's Cowley said Utah CPR is a "sham" group, acting as a front for some of Intermountain's competitors. The coalition is "trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the community and some legislators" in order to get favorable legislation passed during the session.
"This front group is secretive about its membership, financing (and) governing structure. The group appears to be trying to influence potential legislation that could benefit it financially," Cowley said.
Utah CPR showed a 20-minute excerpt of a film the group is developing. Titled "The Bully Boys," the excerpt lambastes Intermountain for allegedly outsourcing its debt-collection activities to law firms and unscrupulous collection firms.
The film relies heavily on an interview with Elizabeth Warren, a nationally known bankruptcy expert and Harvard professor, whose remarks appear to excoriate Intermountain and blame it for Utah's high rate of personal bankruptcies.
Warren, however, never mentions Intermountain by name. In a letter provided by Cowley, Warren said her comments were general and not about a specific health care provider.
"I'm afraid I don't know the specific details of Intermountain," Warren wrote.
