Consumer Coalition Launches “Sick of Blue Cross” Campaign to Fight Blue Cross For Key Healthcare Reforms

"Consumers are sick of Blue Cross' practices to deny coverage, and their efforts to prevent reforms to continue those practices," said Anthony Wright, executive director, Health Access. "Given Blue Cross' practices, Californians are right to think that Blue Cross is raising issues with health reform in order to protect their profits, rather than patients. We want to best inform Californians of what Blue Cross might have to lose, and what consumers have to gain."

“We’re singling out Blue Cross for two reasons,” said Jeanine Meyer Rodriguez, Issue Campaign Director for SEIU CA State Council. “First, because they’ve put themselves out front with their campaign to block reform, and because their corporate practices make Blue Cross the poster child for why we need healthcare reform.”

It’s OUR Healthcare! has been advocating for a number of reforms that would fundamentally change the way Blue Cross and the healthcare industry do business in California:

* Banning the practice of denying coverage for "pre-existing conditions," including minor conditions such as yeast infections, ear infections and seasonal hay fever.

* Requiring that a fair percentage of every premium dollar be spent on healthcare. There's no minimum now, and a proposed requirement that at least 85% of every dollar charged be spent on healthcare, would be a radical shift (and increase) for Blue Cross.

* Requiring approval and justification for rate hikes. Because uncontrolled increases in the cost of health insurance have hit businesses and families hard in California.

The coalition is running ads online and in movie theaters, has collaborated with MoveOn.org on an e-alert tied to Michael Moore’s new movie “SiCKO”, is asking people who’ve been “Blue Crossed” to tell their stories, and is actively recruiting activists online and through the web site www.sickofbluecross.com. It’s OUR Healthcare! represents more than 10 million Californians in groups as diverse as AARP, SEIU, Consumers Union, and ACORN.

“Blue Cross just sent almost a billion dollars of our premiums, back to corporate headquarters in Indiana,” said Wright of Health Access. “We need to change the way things work in healthcare and tell our elected leaders it’s time for them to stand with the people of California, and stand up to Blue Cross.”

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