Blue Cross Withdraws Proposed Sale… for Now

 Local small business owners met at the Chamber of Commerce of East Baton Rouge Parish last week to their continue their attacks against a plan by the Board of Directors of Blue Cross of Louisiana to sell the company to a for-profit out-of-state insurance giant, Elevance.

But just hours before the meeting, Blue Cross announced it was shelving the plan to sell the company and hand the $2.5 billion sales price and $900 million in excess reserves to a new Delaware non-profit foundation the Board set up. Business owners had denounced the plan as the theft of $3.4 billion belonging to policy holders and as a step toward Louisiana losing Blue Cross and many of its 3,500 employees as Elevance consolidates and economizes.

Blue Cross announced that it would be coming back next year with a new plan to sell the company — when Louisiana has a new insurance commissioner and a new governor. However, as Blue Cross ran for the hills with its plan, members of the Chamber only intensified their fire.  Chamber chairman Cecil Cavanaugh said his group wants to keep the plan dead. 

The Chamber got plenty of help from New Orleans attorney Henry “Tut” Kinney who roasted the plan and the Blue Cross Board for proposing it.  Click this QR code to hear his remarks Sept. 26 at the ChamberEBR.