Well done to the jury, the patient, and the attorneys who took on a Colorado hospital and won. You can read here about how (and why) Lisa French fought back against Centura’s attempt to collect $229,000 based on their fictitious chargemaster prices. That any hospital would sue a patient for that money—already deemed unreasonable by the patient’s insurance carrier and every other source of information available, not to mention common sense—is shameful. Hospitals like Centura should have their non-profit status revoked. What, exactly, is it that they do for the community to warrant their tax-free status? Let’s hope Colorado’s next Attorney General makes this a priority.

Perhaps the more important story, however, is the one that’s not here—which is why such an important story is not being covered by the Colorado media. It seems the media is as scared of the healthcare industry as everyone else. Can print media survive without hospital, insurance company, and pharmaceutical advertisers? The healthcare industry has all but shut down the media. The occasional story by 9News’s Chris Vanderveen is about all we see. If the healthcare industry can shut down the local media, where does that leave us?