Anthem Blue Cross is allowed to move ahead with rate hikes in California

Posted by Kendall Harmon

California insurance regulators cleared the way Wednesday for Anthem Blue Cross to implement scaled-back rate hikes after a previous increase was canceled amid an uproar over its size.

Anthem said it intends to put the new rates — averaging 14% and as high as 20% — into effect Oct. 1 for nearly 800,000 individual California policyholders.

Regulators also allowed one of Anthem's nonprofit competitors, Blue Shield of California, to move ahead with rate increases — averaging 19% and as high as 29% — for 250,000 individual policyholders.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • State Government

4 Comments
Posted August 26, 2010 at 5:02 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. A Senior Priest wrote:

This is most excellent. Over a million exceedingly annoyed voters going into the mid-term elections.

August 26, 7:43 pm | [comment link]
2. Dan Crawford wrote:

What a joke: non-profit health insurers. Highmark Blue Cross in Pittsburgh is set to drop the hammer again - the company that has a 5 billion dollar surplus; the company that over three years has raised the rates on its Medicare Supplemental Plan from 50 to 100% in anticipation of the implementation of this year’s Corporate Profit Maintenance and Enhancement legislation that some are calling “reform”. SS/DD as we used to say.

August 26, 8:41 pm | [comment link]
3. Don R wrote:

It seems like a lot of people assumed that “non-profit” would mean “lower-cost” when it came to insurance.  Clearly, that hasn’t worked out quite as expected.

August 27, 11:05 am | [comment link]
4. John316 wrote:

Our Blue Cross rate hikes 15% every year and has for many years now.

August 27, 12:33 pm | [comment link]
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