Health Insurance Corporations: Losses Are Shared But Profits Are Private

60% of the profits of Anthem, Inc. were thanks to the taxpayers who in turn have less access and more expensive medical services. Health insurance corporations must be stopped.

When I was growing up, it seemed that everybody who had health insurance had a Blue Cross plan.

Every state had a Blues plan, every one of them was a nonprofit, and their policies were comparatively cheap and comprehensive.

That seems downright quaint when you consider what has happened to the Blues as more and more of them, starting in 1992 with Blue Cross of California, began to ditch their nonprofit status. Many of them, including the giant Blue Cross of California, are now owned by an Indianapolis-based corporation that has grown to be the second largest in the industry in terms of health plan membership. It is also one of the most profitable.

60% of Anthem’s 2021 revenue was subsidized by American taxpayers.

That company, Anthem, Inc., which operates Blues plans in 15 states, reported last Wednesday that it’s 2021 profits totaled $6.1 billion on revenues of $136.9 billion. That’s more than twice the $2.6 billion in profits the company reported making 10 years ago (when the company was still known as WellPoint, Inc.).

When I was a kid, many if not most folks, including my parents, bought their Blue Cross policies on their own, without any financial assistance from an employer (or the government for that matter). Relatively few employers back then, especially in rural areas and small towns, offered subsidized coverage to their workers. And to my knowledge, the Blues didn’t have anyone anywhere covered in a health plan subsidized by taxpayers.