Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has been spending big bucks to promote what it considers to be a perfectly reasonable proposal--to create a health insurance coverage fund for people who have been denied coverage elsewhere. The pool would be run by the Blue plan, which would cover its initial financing, but after two years all of the state's insurers serving the individual market would have to kick in as well. The pool would be created by legislation currently pending in the Michigan legislature. But other insurers aren't so happy with notion. They say that BCBS of Michigan, which already enjoys big financial advantages as not-for-profit, should stop complaining about its losses on the individual market and dig into its $2.8 billion in reserves.
A lot is at stake here, given that by some estimates, a full 25 percent of the state's residents may need individual policies in less than a decade. It will be interesting to see whether BCBS pulls this off; if so, it may provide a back-door solution for health plans across the U.S., who currently are under fire for aggressively dropping sick patients with individual coverage.
To learn more about the pending legislation:
- read this Chicago Tribune piece
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