NC Blue Cross Blue Shield Customers Asked By Company to Oppose Public Option -- After Hiking Premiums 11%

Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet at 8:00 AM on October 29, 2009.

In a brazen act of hubris, Blue Cross & Blue Shield has sent letters to all of its customers, asking them to send a pre-printed, postage-paid postcard to Democratic Senator Kay Hagan, that urges her to oppose any health-care reform that contains a public option. (The state's other senator, Richard Burr, is a Republican, so Blue Cross already has his "no" vote in their pocket.) And all this after notifying subscribers of a hefty premium hike.

As reported by the Raleigh News & Observer, the letter reads:

"No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it's a slippery slope to a single-payer system. Who wants that?"

And consider this: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is a near-monopoly in that state: it dominates the North Carolina health insurance market, taking in 70 percent of the state's health insurance premiums in 2008. In other words, reports the Triangle Business Journal, the company took in $4.3 billion -- that's billion with a "B" -- from North Carolinians last year.

Yet, a few billion apparently isn't enough real money for Blue Cross. The company recently informed its subscribers that they'll be facing an 11-percent hike in premiums next year. The better to fund those direct-mail campaigns, one imagines. That stuff don't come cheap.

Tagged as: health care, kay hagan, public option, healthcare reform, blue cross, blue cross blue shield of

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington bureau chief.