Blue Cross Deal Collapses

Faced with opposition from State Treasurer John Fleming, M.D., members of the Louisiana Senate, the State Medical Society and other physician groups, and its own voting members, Blue Cross has announced it is withdrawing a reorganization plan underway since last year.

Just a few days ago, many in politics thought the plan was unstoppable. Then suddenly it crashed and burned!

The controversial plan would have converted Blue Cross from a non-profit Louisiana-based mutual insurance company owned by its members to a for-profit company owned by an out-of-state publicly-traded company known for its “woke” policies.

The buyer, Elevance, formerly Anthem, has been fined more than $1 billion for its denial of claims and other practices and is currently being sued for fraud by the U.S. Dept. of Justice.

State Treasurer Fleming, a practicing family physician, was the first major political figure in the state to oppose the plan. In a speech to the Ronald Reagan Newsmaker Luncheon, Dr. Fleming said physicians’ experiences in other states showed Elevance would likely bring “higher health insurance premiums, less coverage, and poorer quality care.” His extensive statement on the plan was carried by media throughout the state.

A joint hearing of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee and the Senate Insurance Committee last week was said by many to be one of the finest legislative committee meetings they had seen.  The senators were well informed on the Blue Cross plan and grilled Blue Cross and Elevance in detail, uncovering many facts the public had not heard before.  The committees issued a report opposing the plan on Thursday, Feb. 8 immediately after Dr. Fleming issued his statement in opposition to the plan.  It seemed to have a snowball effect in the media, and suddenly people around the state were talking about the Blue Cross plan.

That same morning on Feb. 8, attorney Tut Kinney who sued Blue Cross last August to stop the plan, was conducting depositions of Blue Cross CEO Dr. Steve Udvarhelyi and Tim Barfield, Blue Cross Board member and the acting president of the Accelerate foundation.  Under the plan, the entire purchase price of Blue Cross and most of the unrestricted reserves of the organization were to be paid to Accelerate rather than the 92,000 members of Blue Cross who actually own the mutual insurance company.

For months, radio commentator Moon Griffon, who has a daily statewide following, has pounded away at the Blue Cross plan even after the company made a massive advertising buy on his show.

Here at the Central City News, we broke the story back in August with our coverage of Tut Kinney’s speech to the Ronald Reagan Newsmaker Luncheon.

Gov. Jeff Landry appeared to oppose the plan during the campaign but has recently said he was neither for nor against it.

The knock-out blow for the Blue Cross reorganization plan seemed to come from Attorney General Liz Murrill who sent Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple a strongly worded letter against the plan.  Hours later, Blue Cross announced it was withdrawing the plan.

The State Treasurer, Dr. Fleming, said he was not surprised the Blue Cross plan collapsed. “There was really no support for the plan. Everybody was against it, except those personally benefitting. People just needed to be informed about what it did, and that’s what we tried to do.