by Barbara Thomas


Blue Cross insurance was the creation of Justin Ford Kimball who, in 1929, devised a plan to provide hospital care for school teachers in Dallas. The plan provided teachers with cover for as much as twenty a single days in hospitalization each year to your premium of six dollars.

From these humble beginnings the plan spread, first throughout Dallas along with other areas of Texas and then nationwide, providing cover for employees across an ever widening variety of employment.

Just ten many years after it was born the Blue Cross symbol was adopted by the American Hospital Association for plans that met specific standards and this formal recognition provided Blue Cross insurance having a springboard for additional growth.

In 1960 the growth in status of Blue Cross was such that the Blue Cross Association superseded the American Hospital Association commission and some twelve years later severed all ties with the commission.

Finally, in 1982, the Blue Cross Association merged with the National Association of Blue Shield Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association we know today was formed.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is in effect a trade association for some thirty eight independent and locally, or regionally, operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans. These together supply cover throughout the United States, as well as in the Canadian province, for millions of People in america (it is estimated that a single in 3 People now carry a Blue Cross and Blue Shield card) and makes Blue Cross and Blue Shield the country's largest healthcare provider.

But Blue Cross and Blue Shield does additional than merely provide medical insurance cover on the group and person basis.

The Association is now also the administrator for Social Security in a big variety of states and usually provides group cover for state federal government employees and for employees with the Federal government. As being a result, officials within Blue Cross and Blue Shield work closely with government wellness policy makers at the incredibly top levels of federal government and the Association plays a crucial component in influencing the direction of government well being policy.

It is incredible to believe that a plan originally devised simply to provide cover for hospital bills for your small group of school teachers in Dallas has now designed not only into a nationwide plan providing cover for just about a thing you possibly can imagine from critical illness through long-term care, disability, life cover, dental cover, pharmacy cover and even cover for worldwide travel, but has also spawned an company that may be at the very heart with the healthcare method in the United States.

With these kinds of phenomenal growth in the past seventy 5 years and such a powerful position today 1 can only imagine that Blue Cross and Blue Shield will continue to grow during the many years ahead proving yet much more and more cover for an ever growing variety of customers.




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