Investigating and publicizing abuses of the public trust by the nonprofit healthcare industry.

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PREVIOUSLY secret DOCUMENTS SHOW BLUE SHIELD thwarted enforcement of state law requiring earnings of nonprofit health plans to be used for public good

Last fall, California’s health plan regulator secretly approved a plan by Blue Shield of California’s leaders to transfer ownership of the nonprofit insurer, including its $4.6 billion in stockpiled profits, to a newly-created Delaware corporation. In approving the plan, the regulator accepted Blue Shield’s claim that despite being a nonprofit it has no duty to serve the public good.

However, documents released by tax authorities show the claim is false and that Blue Shield has a clear legal obligation to use its billions of dollars in earnings to benefit Californians by lowering rates, subsidizing coverage for those in need or in other ways that help Californians access needed medical care. But unless the regulator stops the transfer of assets out of California and forces Blue Shield to obey California nonprofit health plan laws, the public will lose the right to any benefit at all from those billions—and just as they are about the suffer the effects of the massive Trump health care cuts.

The Plan to Take Nonprofit BCBS of Louisiana For-Profit

The directors and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana have cut a deal to sell the nonprofit health plan to Elevance Health, the healthcare conglomerate formerly named Anthem. If approved by regulators, the deal would provide compensation of over $1 million to each of BCBSLA’s directors and give them control over a $3 billion “foundation” created from sale proceeds, with minimal restrictions over the use of that money. For health care consumers, the sale threatens significantly higher health insurance premiums. Read more.

Did BLUE SHIELD OF CAlifornia commit a $111 million tax fraud?

In 2015, Blue Shield’s top lawyer concluded in a written analysis that a competitor’s exclusion of certain revenue from amounts reported to the IRS amounted to tax evasion. The following year, Blue Shield began doing exactly what its competitor had done.