Republican Governor socializes medicine…

That’s the way the Blue Cross/Blue Shield parent organization sees it anyway. See, after a failed attempt to convert from a not-for-profit healthcare organization to another greedy for-profit group, CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield just had its Blue badge removed by the national organization. During the fractious fight over the conversion and sale to WellPoint Health Services — a US$1.3 billion deal which would have handed US$119 million in bonuses and merger incentives to the company’s top executives — the Maryland State Legislature passed a bill to restructure the private company. One of the bill’s major provisions required the Governor to appoint 10 members to the company’s 21-member board.

While 10 out of 21 isn’t a majority, it certainly lowers the bar for Maryland’s state government to strongly influence the outcome of any of the company’s actions. If any of the company’s by-laws require a super-majority, the boys in Annapolis have de facto veto power over this supposedly private corporation. Not too terrible when you have a governor who leans libertarian on social issues, but disastrous if/when the Holy Rollers take over the Statehouse.

And that power, according to the national Blue organization, amounts to a state takeover of CareFirst, violating the affiliation agreement which allows CareFirst’s 3.1 million subscribers access to their plan benefits outside their home area. The organization, which considers its independence from political influence an important asset, views the signing of this bill an immediate termination of the comapny’s affiliation, and if it had not been ordered to stay any such action by a Federal judge, they would have already demanded that CareFirst remove the blue logos from its identity.

Meanwhile, we subscribers to CareFirst are left in limbo. This is not the state-run healthcare system I envisioned.