Health insurers and hospitals, usually on opposite sides, lined up together Tuesday to give Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler an earful about his proposed new rule for insurance-provider networks. Kreidler proposed the rule after complaints that consumers have been taken by surprise about narrower networks in insurance plans offered in the Affordable Care Act. Those networks exclude some of the region's prominent hospitals and medical centers, meaning some consumers don't have access to providers they expected to use. For example, only one insurer offering plans through the Washington Healthplanfinder online exchange includes Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in Seattle; only three include Seattle Children's, which has filed a lawsuit over the issue.
