BUSINESSDelaware Blues plan disassociates from parent company CareFirstThe move is part of the fallout from the health plan's unsuccessful attempt to convert to for-profit status.By Pamela Lewis Dolan, amednews staff. Oct. 16, 2006. Answering the two-year question of whether BlueCross BlueShield of Delaware would stay affiliated with Owings Mills, Md.-based CareFirst, the company in late September announced that it had decided not to fight the order of Delaware's insurance commissioner that the two companies part ways. The move marked an end to a six-year saga that started with the alliance and continued with CareFirst's unsuccessful attempt to convert to a for-profit company. The Medical Society of Delaware is applauding the commissioner's decision. "A local plan serves Delaware and its citizens better than a plan operated from a distant land," said Mark Meister, society executive director. Insurance Commissioner Matthew Denn announced Aug. 24 that he would uphold his predecessor's 2004 decision to force the Blues plan to separate from its parent company. Since being elected to office in January 2005, Denn placed the separation, mandated by former commissioner Donna Lee Williams, on hold to allow himself time to investigate how the separation would impact members in Delaware. Williams ordered the separation after CareFirst, which also operates Blues plans in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia, tried to convert to a for-profit company so that it could be bought by Indianapolis-based WellPoint, a move which the affected state medical societies opposed. A law passed in 2003 by the Maryland Legislature placed a five-year moratorium on the conversion and laid the groundwork for a restructured CareFirst board. Williams was concerned that the new law would undercut Delaware's presence on the board. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2006 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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