Going After Blue Cross of CA

The public hearing scheduled for July 19 about Blue Cross of CA and its deceptive, anti-consumer practices will now be held on August 7. Not only are they angering their subscriber base by going out of their way to deny claims and cancel policies for "discrepancies" as trivial as typos, but they're starting to piss off hospitals as well.

Blue Cross of California's latest antidote to rising healthcare costs isn't going down very well with physicians. The state's largest for-profit health plan is set to roll back its payments for about half the services and procedures provided by physicians next month.

And many of the 53,408 physicians in Blue Cross' preferred provider organization (PPO) networks say that's a prescription for disaster.

Doctors say the health plan imposed the new rates unilaterally. In most cases, they say, Blue Cross will get its way because it controls the lion's share of their patient base. But other physicians say they've had it with Blue Cross. More than 300 of them have sent notices threatening to dump the insurer if the rates take effect as scheduled Aug. 6. Some say the new rates won't even cover the cost of supplies. 'I don't know how anybody can afford to stay in practice and accept Blue Cross rates,' said Dr. Charles Fishman, a San Luis Obispo dermatologist who sent a letter telling Blue Cross he would drop its contract if his rates were not improved. A spokeswoman for the insurer described the level of complaints over the new rates as routine, and she said the number of termination notices from physicians over the issue was negligible - less than 1% of the doctors in its PPO networks.

Surely, this will come up in the August 7 hearing, to be held at the Carmel Room Auditorium at the Junipero Serra Building, 320 West 4th St., Los Angeles, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. And It's Our Healthcare is amping up the pressure by demanding that Blue Cross return to the state millions in excess profits:

This year alone, Blue Cross has sent almost a billion dollars in profit out of California to its corporate headquarters in Indiana.

Blue Cross is able to amass such a profit because it currently relies on business practices that harm millions of Californians, such as:

--Spending less of California's premium dollars on patient care than other larger insurers
--Denying coverage for pre-existing conditions?and instead seeking to insure only the healthy
--Selling insurance designed to provide limited benefits, coupled with high deductibles and co-pays
--Raising rates however and whenever it chooses

We urge the state enact meaningful reform to stop these practices and we urge the state to order Blue Cross to return the hundreds of millions of dollars in excess profit to California.

We, the undersigned Californians, ask the state to make Blue Cross reform its business practices to start putting people ahead of profits and stop using California as an ATM.

Blue Cross has already settled out of court on some of these issues, but there is no indication that they have curtailed their practices and cleaned up their act. Blue Cross has also taken the lead in torpedoing meaningful health care reform in the state. It is maybe the most unconscionable company in the state, and I don't know what it takes to get a corporate charter revoked, but theirs ought to be.

At any rate, you can keep the pressure up by signing the petition.