The Blue Cross Story

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is the biggest private health insurance system in the United States (like Puerto Rico) and Canada. It is composed of 55 independent, locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans that collectively offered health care coverage to more than 88 million people in 2003.<br><br>For its beginnings we need to go back to 1929 to a man namedJustin Ford Kimball when he became vice president of Baylor University in Dallas, Texas. He was an experienced administrator, as he headed the College of Medicine, School of Nursing, College of Dentistry, and the university hospital.<br><br>Soon following taking the job, he created a well being plan that guaranteed teachers 21 days of hospital care for 50 cents amonth. The program soon spread to other employee groups in Dallas, and then comparable plans began to crop up nation-wide.<br><br>Meanwhile, about the identical time that Kimball was making his plan, the Blue Shield concept was becoming popular in the lumber and mining camps of the Pacific Northwest. Significant injuries and chronic illness were prevalent amongst these workers [http://www.commercialpropertyadvisors.com/ commercial property advisors] who were in really hazardous and harmful jobs.<br><br>Their employers saw the need to provide medical care for them and they arranged with physicians to pay them a monthly fee to take care of the medical demands of the workers. These programs would later grow to be what is identified as the Blue [http://www.chittendenbuilders.com/ home builders vermont] Shield Plans.<br><br>As for the cross symbol, it was first utilised in a 1934 advertisement for the Hospital Service Association, which later became recognized as [http://watchmotivationalspeakers.com/the-top-10-motivational-speakers/ top 10 motivational speakers] Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.<br><br>Joseph Binder, a Viennese artist, was hired by Firm secretary E.A. van Steenwyk to create a poster that included a blue Greek cross. Van Steenwyk employed the symbol to determine his company's wellness plans and then Blue Cross began to use it in other parts of the country.<br><br>In 1939, the American Hospital Association, which was based in Chicago, began to use the Blue Cross symbol to indicate that well being plans about the country met specific standards.<br><br>The AHA continued to use the symbol until 1960 when the Blue Cross Association was founded. The two organizations remained affiliated till 1972.<br><br>The shield symbol was produced in Buffalo, New York by Carl Metzger in 1939 and the 1st official Blue Shield program was founded in California that identical year. Carl Metzger was an early pioneer in the Blue movement and he wanted a style that would distinguish the new medical service plan.<br><br>It soon flourished as the number of Blue Shield Plans kept on growing. In 1948 the symbol was informally adopted by nine plans named the Associated Medical Care Plan, which was later renamed the National Association of Blue Shield Plans.<br><br>Over the years, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield healthcare insurance concepts took hold. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association was formed in 1982 by a merger of the Blue Cross Association and the National Association of Blue Shield Plans. When the Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations merged, their brand symbols also merged and became 1 of the most familiar symbols in America.<br><br>To show you how large it has grow to be, in 2003, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association took in $182.7 billion in income. The evolution of managed wellness care in the United States is intimately linked to the styles of Blue Cross-Blue Shield.