Providence Health and Services of Western Montana is sponsoring a free community talk today called "Transforming Health Care: The Cost of Care." Chief Executive Jeff Fee said people will learn about the driving forces that impact health care prices and what the future holds for your health care costs.

"They made the assumption that when somebody purchased a policy in January, that that individual would continue paying for that policy for that year," Fee said. "What they found, and this is something across the nation, is that people are buying policies, having their medical procedure done, and then stopping paying. Their health plans end up faced with claims that are multiples of the premium they collected on that claim."

Fee said there are still people who also have not purchased health care insurance policies.

"Those are often politically challenged and politically charged conversations, but it doesn't take an actuarial scientist to understand that if you've got people that are going in and racking up $200,000 bills and paying two months of premiums that that's not sustainable for everybody in general," Fee said.

The seminar will be at the Broadway Building Conference Center at 500 West Broadway from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

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