Tag: BCBS

Once upon a time, the insurer of last resort (yeah Michiganians have had a cant-deny-preexisting insurer for several decades already)was owned by you and I. (since 1939)  As recently as a few years ago, it even carried a balance sheet of about $6,000,000,000.00 including over $3,000,000,000.00 cash reserves. The BCBS board tried to use those reserves in for-profit ventures, (a great way to pass off cash to private partners)  and were stopped by then attorney general Mike Cox. In 2008, Cox kept BCBS of MI in check.

But things are different now. This time no one stepped in to stop the transference of a GREAT BIG PILE OF MONEY away from Michigan citizens. And the great big Obamacare boondoggle helped them do it. Now that they aren't owned by you and I, its time to make some real cash!

"Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan shows a projected savings of tens of millions of dollars next year by terminating 25 individual health plans that were noncompliant with the Affordable Care Act.

Over the past decade, Blue Cross has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the individual market as Michigan's designated insurer of last resort, a moniker it no longer has under health care reform with all insurers now required to cover people with pre-existing conditions and its conversion earlier this year into a mutual health insurer. "

How clever.

Enjoy the song.

Recall a few years ago, Michigan AG Mike Cox slapped down the blues for a strange bust out into the for-profit insurance market.  At the time, Cox said:

"Blue Cross has built a huge surplus with the help of state tax breaks and rapidly rising insurance premiums.  They should be cutting health costs for Michigan families instead of diving deeper into the for-profit insurance industry."

Since that slap down, I have frequently imagined how the blues could be dis-assembled.  Not at all that I wanted to, but asking the question of HOW such a structured insurer of last resort might be dissolved at some point. And to be sure, given THAT situation, there ought to have been others inside and out of government who might have wondered as well.  Had it not been for AG Cox wagging the I-don't-think-so finger, a strange funneling of money to other 'for-profit' entities might have happened, costing rate payers dearly.  "Who might have been the recipients and concurrent stockholders in such an arrangement that hides cash flow from non-profit reporting requirements?" could have been the question at hand.

When he said:

"....that's freedom, and I'll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners"

He touched on a point that is relevant no matter whom the leadership might be.  The interference and 'concern' over the affairs of our lives is too often conflicting with the independence we claim as our birthright.  Some folks forget that we have to be able to fail. That risk and reward is a part of the American dream.  That sometimes, our decisions make us healthy, and sometimes not.

Its NOT government's place to provide a boost for a business.  Its NOT government's place to control the healthcare choices through exchanges or limitations on where one buys insurance or the care itself.  Its NOT the government's place to provide housing. Nor is it government's place to control the terms of employment, and compensation that business provides.

Ryan is correct.  

Republicans in Michigan and elsewhere ought to take note of the future VP's comments and internalize them.