I don't think you understand. Allina is raising the nurse's deductible, and forcing them to use the Hospital as a provider. A little info/Health care 101. At large companies, you pay the company for healthcare. Everything goes into a company pool, and the company that you work for pays for insurance claims. They hire a company to do the paperwork, and that company ends-up on the medical insurance forms. They negotiate prices so that your employer doesn't have to hire someone to do it.

Negotiating costs of medical care brings it down from the astronomical inflation that hospitals tend to do to costs (usually 500%), so that the employer pays at-cost for the benefits.

Allina is a hospital, and an insurer of their employees. You'd think the employees would have the best healthcare in the world then, right? No.

Allina's play is to charge their employees the inflated cost (500%, no negotiation), and charge them $9000 before they start covering the costs. So let's say you have an appendectomy. At-cost: $2000-ish. Co-pays and insurance would usually pay for this. Allina's plan is to essentially charge them $10,000 (standard hospital inflation that is not needed), and make them shell out for the inflated cost, while paying premiums.

In the meantime, care in Allina hospitals is absolutely horrendous with the back-up/temp nurses. Seriously, avoid until the strike is over.

In addition, the administration, which claims to have the same health plans as the nurses, because they have the same health plan name, are lying. The name might be the same, but the benefits are far different.

As a non-profit, the Allina owners take the profits/excess from the hospitals, invest in for-profit companies, and collect the profits for themselves for personal gain. They also, FYI, spend more on office supplies, than on nurse benefits annually. (no bullshit, check their records). With $1 billion tucked-away in off-shore accounts, you'd think Allina wouldn't be shy about helping their employees out.