Battle looms over physician-owned hospitals

Concerns over how physician-owned hospitals and surgical centers will affect traditional hospitals have sparked legislative proposals aimed at stanching the proliferation of these specialty-health-care facilities.
At stake are lucrative surgical procedures and the well-to-do patients with health-care coverage who require them.
Hospitals officials worry that physician-owned centers will skim off the least-risky, best-paying procedures that traditionally have helped cover the costs of providing other care. Physicians, meanwhile, argue that in a capitalistic system, competition is healthy.
Media coverage has described Colorado as Ground Zero in the debate over physician-owned hospitals and surgical centers.
As with a handful of other…