FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) -- Just one week after an investigative reporter with The Guardian U.S. blasted Parkview Health, writing it "took over a region and jacked up prices," the online newspaper struck again Thursday. "Patients and employers accuse not-for-profit Indiana hospital of price gouging" read the headline, as the follow-up story in the "Too Big to Care" series cited a local business owner who dropped employee insurance because of skyrocketing costs. Doug Allen, President of Plas-Tech Molding and Design, explained to reporter George Joseph that since 2007, the costs of his employees’ health insurance had shot up around 275% “We are pretty much held hostage by where we can go,” Allen told The Guardian U.S. of Parkview’s regional constellation of hospitals and affiliated doctors’ offices. “There’s only one supplier in the whole area.” Allen confirmed those sentiments to WANE 15. "From 2007 to 2020, I don't believe there was a single employee here that had a surgery, maybe a small one," he said. "The rates still go up 20% every year." Plas-Tech is located in Brimfield, which is west of Kendallville in Noble County and Allen said the closest hospitals not affiliated with Parkview are 35 to 45 minutes away. Parkview did not provide a comment to the Guardian U.S. WANE 15 also asked for a response and has yet to hear back. However, in 2023, Parkview gave WANE 15 an exclusive look at Signature Care 2.0, a partnership with select employers designed to lower health care costs. “Our job at Parkview Health is to make our regional employers as competitive as they can be,” Dr. Greg Johnson, Parkview’s Regional Market President, explained at the time. “We’re a not-for-profit organization fully invested in northeast Indiana. We benefit when we lower those costs because it draws more companies to our region.” That was not the sentiment people expressed to Joseph after his first report. "A lot of patients were really concerned about bills that they had been receiving, some of which they felt were not only too high, but unfair," he explained to WANE 15 about the quick follow-up. He alleged Parkview is among the top 10% of hospitals nationally in terms of the costs they extract from commercial insurers compared to Medicare costs. "So even though high health care prices are certainly a problem all across the country, Parkview certainly stands out in how much businesses are being expected to pay for insurance and how much patients have to pay as a result of those high costs." Joseph also quoted several candidates and lawmakers about possible legislative fixes. Republican State Senator Andy Zay of Huntington, the only northeast Indiana lawmaker quoted in the Guardian report, said he would consider giving Indiana's attorney general the ability to stop healthcare consolidation that would undermine competition. Zay told WANE 15 that healthcare costs are still troubling and need to be worked on in 2025. "But we do have some shackles with the Affordable Care Act and the regulation from the feds," he added. Joseph said he might do additional stories. "If we receive more tips from Parkview patients and employees, we will continue investigating."