Blue Shield of California is arguing in a new print ad that big hospitals have to do their part to help hold down health care costs.
California Blue Shield, San Francisco — which is a completely separate company from Blue Cross of California — singled out the UCLA Medical Center in a full-page color ad that run earlier this week in the Daily Bruin — a newspaper published at the University of California at Los Angeles — and in the Santa Monica Daily Press. The ad also is running in other Los Angeles papers, such as the Los Angeles Business Journal.
California Blue Shield agreed in 2010 to voluntarily cap its net income at 2% of revenue.
California Blue Shield notes in the ad that profits at the UCLA Medical Center have been over 10% in recent years.
"At the same time, the rates they charge Blue Shield customers have risen 98%," the carrier says. "Their current profit margin of 16.8% is more than four times the statewide average for hospitals. Now they're demanding even more. We think it's time to say "enough" is too much."
SUPPLEMENTAL DRUG COVERAGE
Transamerica Employee Benefits, Little Rock, Ark., a unit of AEGON N.V., The Hague, Netherlands (NYSE:AEG), has introduced a voluntary prescription drug indemnity program aimed at the sorts of low-income and part-time workers who have "mini med" health benefits.
The program gives workers access to discounted drugs at about 60,000 U.S. pharmacies.
When the amount the indemnity plan will pay is greater than the cost of the drugs purchased, the workers will get the difference back at the cash register, Transamerica says.
The feature means that, in some cases, workers who use the benefits will actually get cash, instead of paying cash to the pharmacy, the company says.
ST. BALDRICK'S
AmWINS Group Inc., Charlotte, N.C. persuaded executives from 8 excess and surplus lines carriers — David Bresnahan of Lexington Insurance Company; Dave Leonard of RSUI Group; Eduardo Lucena of Colemont Brazil; Frank Murphy of THB Group P.L.C.; James Drinkwater of AmWINS Brokerage; John Charman of AXIS Capital; Scott Carmilani of Allied World Assurance Company, and Skip Cooper of AmWINS Group Inc. — to shave their heads bald at a fundraising event in Las Vegas.
The event raised about $700,000 for the St. Baldrick's Foundation, an organization that fights childhood cancers.
AmWINS has an employee benefits arm.
The event raises the question: Do health, disability and long-term care insurance executives also have what it takes to go bald for St. Baldrick's?
If the life industry can raise $1 million through executive head shavings, then I, too, will get my head shaved.
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