Indiana Insurance

L. Ben Lytle, president of Anthem Inc., the great Indiana insurance company, argued the case of mergers of Blue Cross plans before an attentive audience of state insurance regulatory authorities, on Tuesday, just over the period , The anthem and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey annnounced the collapse of their own proposed merger.

”Most publicly H.M.O. Enterprise, about 10 billion dollars of turnover,’’said Lytle. But attempts to combine Blue Cross plans in companies large enough to face that Wettbewerb”wurden entirely stymied”von State officials and consumer groups, “he added.

Officials in at least a half-dozen countries, unlike the assets of Blue Cross plans are part of man in their country, insurers have decades of concessions in taxes and other charges. Officials indicate that the assets should be transferred to a non-profit foundation, if a Blue Cross plan changes to its original nonprofit status or merges with an Out-of-State-insurer.

With the collapse of the merger of New Jersey, at the end of the survival of the German Blue Cross system may be a danger.

Blue Cross plans have been federal state. They have won concessions by the law, legislators and waited for it obligations, such as care for poor citizens. Now, many Blue Cross plans are to combat shuck the obligations and transform them so that they can compete with themselves in a regional and national arena with private companies, whose commitment is essential to the participation of shareholders total.

Blue Cross officials say that the conditions of competition is tilted against it, if it is about their fortune.

There are 58 Blue Cross plans, with a total area of 68.6 million members across the country, a profit of 1.2 million since January 1. But some of them were members of the losing, and the number of plans has been declining rapidly. 65 projects were a year ago and 128 for the year 1975.

”My question to the Insurance Commissioners: “Do you care? Do you think that Blue Cross plays an important role in the health system?” Sir,’’said Lytle.

But the regulators of insurance, fell M. Lytle seemed more concerned by what they saw as the plans’ public responsibility.

”In the end, they have an obligation to return public that the commitment charitable foundation,’’said Jack Ehnes, insurance commissioner in Colorado, heads a committee of the Blue Cross National Association of Insurance Commissioners .

But Scott Serota, Executive Vice President National Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, said that Pläne”brauchen the same flexibility as our competitors - the structure of businesses access to capital markets,”change in insurance companies Mutual or merge.

Daniel Cain, a partner in Cain Brothers, which specializes in investments in health ventures, supports this view. Le”Blue Cross plans are frozen in a plan of the property, which is no longer competitive in many cases,”he said.

He said that state officials were the eyes verlieren”der fact that many of the persons concerned, venture capital, whether citizens or businesses insurance customers of Blue Cross plans to pay taxes and create jobs.”

Robert Atlas, Senior Vice President of the Lewin Group, a consulting and business research, working with a number of Blue Cross plans, sagte”gab never Umwandlung”eines a non-profit for-profit Without de”valeur status is assigned to public confidence.”

But he added that die”Bewertungen were often winzigen”vor of the exhibition were invited and often politically charged.

For example, U.S. Health Care, the major organization of health maintenance grouped in a Aetna Inc $ 8.8 billion to capture, was originally a small non-profit organization, a health maintenance the Philadelphia area. There was a transfer to a foundation of about 3 million, said Douglas Sherlock, an independent analyst in Philadelphia, tracks Managed Care business.