The trial balloon is just the sort of thing that could shock the Legislature into forgetting about a proposal that would force IHC's insurance company to pay for its customers' medical needs even when those customers do not go to IHC's doctors and hospitals. Lawmakers should not fall for it.

Sick people are increasingly tired of the way IHC rules health care for half a million Utahns, with its aggressive collection policies and its aborted attempt to force all its patients into binding arbitration agreements. Which is too bad, given that its doctors and facilities are widely rated as the best care anywhere.

Feelings have gotten so bad that a near-majority of the state Senate, hardly big fans of government regulation, was backing a bill that would force all insurance providers to (mostly) pay even when customers go outside the insurer's network for treatment.

IHC claims that idea would force premiums higher. Blue Cross, which covers almost as many Utahns as IHC does, but owns no hospitals, agrees. But, perhaps because that is the insurance company response to all criticism, the argument quickly took a different tack.

One knock against IHC is that its insurance arm funnels customers to its providers, keeping profits neatly in the family. So IHC is reportedly contemplating a no-fault divorce.

But just splitting the 500-pound gorilla of Utah health care into two 250-pound gorillas would make little difference to patients, employers or anyone else concerned. Even a nominally independent IHC insurance company would likely do what other insurers do - limit its patients to the IHC health care network. It is by far the largest provider in the state and the choice of many insurers not owned by IHC (including the plan that covers Salt Lake Tribune employees).

It is a widespread problem, not of IHC's making, that benefits-providing, cost-conscious employers often change health plans. Patients may then be forced to change doctors, a stressful and dangerous move for a person in the seventh month of a pregnancy or undergoing long-term treatment for disease. It also increases overhead costs as records have to be copied and shipped all over town.

Legislators thus have before them a proposal from Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, to require all insurers to pay 95 percent of their approved rates to doctors outside their networks. They should consider it on its merits, without worrying too much about whether IHC is one company, or two.