Hearing Set on CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Finances, Giving
D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice says insurance giant CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield has a current surplus of well over $300.million, according to a report filed Monday with the city Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking.
CareFirst's finances and its obligation to the city will be the subject of a Sept. 10 hearing before the securities and banking department.
The legislation gives the mayor the authority to establish the amount of money CareFirst must give to the city after the department's review.
For several years, Appleseed has been pushing for CareFirst to contribute more to the city.
CareFirst sent a report to the securities and banking department in July that explained that it could, in fact, have losses of $12.million annually under the proposed legislation.
-- Nikita Stewart
By Gene Fynes |
August 31, 2009; 6:23 PM ET
| Category:
Budget
,
City Finances
,
D.C. Council
,
Nikita Stewart
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Posted by: peterdc | September 1, 2009 12:35 PM
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If the city forces CareFirst to give money to the city out of its reserves that would be a tax on the subcribers to CareFirst. As a subscriber I feel if there are more funds than necessary in reserves they should be returned to me or the cost of my policy should be lowered.
If the City wants money to help care for its uninsured then there should be an across the Board tax on all insurance companies that sell health insurance in the District to fund that-not choosing one compamy to fund the bill and in essense taxing only those subscribers.
Even worse here the District employees aren't even allowed to choose CareFirst as their insurance.
Common sense should show the Council how unfair this ripoff of the CareFirst reserves would be.
In additon I understand that Appleseed, who is pushing the City on this, has asked that CareFirst give them millions of dollars as well. This would seem like a real conflict of interest.