On August 7th, the state of California will hold a public hearing in Los Angeles to investigate Blue Cross.
This follows hundreds of complaints about premium increases, benefit cuts, cancelled policies and other practices at Blue Cross – the same Blue Cross that earlier this year shipped almost a billion dollars in our health care dollars to its corporate parent in Indiana.
That staggering profit, made at the expense of health care consumers in California, has made Blue Cross the poster child for why we need health care reform. And we can get reform started on August 7th, by calling on the state to order Blue Cross to return our money and to pass health care legislation that prevents Blue Cross from gouging us and start providing real health care.
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.
Signed by:
[Your name]
[Your address]
