Anthem Blue Cross President Resigns
After overseeing a company that proposed rate hikes of 39% in the midst of the health care reform debate, Anthem Blue Cross President Leslie Margolin has resigned.
Leslie Margolin led the Woodland Hills-based insurer as it weathered intense criticism this year over planned rate increases of up to 39% for many of its nearly 800,000 individual policyholders. Anthem canceled the hikes after calculation errors were uncovered in its filing.
Anthem parent WellPoint Inc. would not comment on Margolin's departure, saying only in a written statement that she "played an integral role in collaborating with hospitals and providers across the state" and championed innovations to improve patient safety.
Despite WellPoint's denials, there's no question that they've been disappointed in their West Coast operation's failure to boost profits. Margolin has been president for two years, and in that time Anthem Blue Cross has seen profits dwindle, passage of the Affordable Care Act, and a strong movement afoot in California for statewide single payer health insurance.
I suspect Margolin is heading out of the corporate sector to the nonprofit sector to do battle against the rising tide of California OneCare's passage after Jerry Brown is elected Governor.
In a separate statement, Margolin said she was leaving Anthem to lead a private healthcare reform coalition, Transforming Health Care. That group is composed of hospitals, physician groups, health plans, employers and consumer advocates working to improve California's healthcare delivery system, Margolin said in a statement.
It sounds so nice and consumer-friendly, doesn't it? Their website isn't launched yet, but it has this nice transitional statement on a plain page:
TransformingHealthcare.com is a consortium of expertise to improve performance, change, and grow healthcare organizations. This strategic alliance of consulting firms offering complementary services in healthcare. These organizations, most headed by their founders, have small, elite staff with outstanding competence in their specialties. Consultants are selected to create the most appropriate team for the needs of each client.
The list is interesting. From computer consultants to specialists in Sarbanes-Oxley, it's certainly an eclectic bunch. And now they can add Margolin, former president of Anthem Blue Cross.
..."Transforming Health Care" will take advantage of the health care overhaul in some significant way.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
and hired her to implement his wonderful new mandated "for-profit" despotic health care plan:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/07/14/...
Perhaps Margolin is making plans to join Ms. Fowler for a little...follow through??
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
the system.
These organizations, most headed by their founders, have small, elite staff with outstanding competence in their specialties.
Elite staff--say it all. After bilking people out of their money for years, she's now going to "contribute" to make health care reform work? I smell a RAT.
work. I got that she was going to help those who profit from health care reform refine their practices. You know, up their profits. Tighten their ships. Make more money off of the sick and insured. That kind of thing.
but the red never forgets
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sicka...
in the country that gave us kind old uncle adolf, it is considered immoral to make a profit from peoples health care, therefore insurcos and providers in germany are non-profit by law.
leave with which no doubt was formed on the backs of the working class who had to pay that 39% increase? A nice big one, you betcha!
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
I wonder what his separation package was?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-E7ZaFCEDQ&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp-HsUFqqRE
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I dunno what kind of "calculation errors" the pigs at Anthem/Blue Cross found, but last year they raised my premium from $360 a month to $450, and then again just last month to $527. That's an increase of 46% in 2 years!!! Of course I cannot afford this any more and am going to have to cancel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNuCfD5bICQ
You rule for mentioning and linking to the California OneCare campaign. It's a long term campaign, requiring 2/3+ support in the legislature (totally do-able) but California WILL get single payer. Health Care for All California (www.healthcareforall.org) has local chapters fighting for SB-810 (single payer) in CA and directly supports the COC campaign.
As this post mentions, this lobby "Transforming Health Care" is an Orwellian and powerful force that is going to fight tooth and nail to stop CA from adopting the best solution to the health care crisis. Healthcare for All and the COC campaign need the numbers and the cash to stop them.
Women are disposable workers at Blue Cross, always have been. Your premiums pay for temp agency and in-house temped customer service workers, trained on-site and rotated out once they become near their benefits-eligibility date.
Margolin allowed this practice, colluded in the practice, and now she has become a victim of the practice.
How difficult is it to understand that megacorporations hire blacks and women at the top to scapegoats for problems which preceded their promotions? The whiteboys definitely don't plan to take responsibility for their own socially reprehensible policies.
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