The Blue Cross Story

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is the biggest private well being insurance method in the United States (such as Puerto Rico) and Canada. It is composed of 55 independent, locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans that collectively provided well being care coverage to more than 88 million individuals 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 skilled administrator, as he headed the College of Medicine, School of Nursing, College of Dentistry, and the university hospital.<br><br>Soon after taking the job, he developed a well being strategy that guaranteed teachers 21 days of hospital care for 50 cents amonth. The strategy soon spread to other employee groups in Dallas, and then related plans began to crop up nation-wide.<br><br>Meanwhile, around the very same time that Kimball was making his program, the Blue Shield concept was becoming popular in the lumber and mining camps of the Pacific Northwest. Severe injuries and chronic illness were common amongst these workers who were in really hazardous and dangerous jobs.<br><br>Their employers saw the want to supply medical care for them and they arranged with physicians to pay them a monthly fee to take care of the medical needs of the workers. These programs would later become what is known as the Blue Shield Plans.<br><br>As for the cross symbol, it was 1st utilised in a 1934 advertisement for the Hospital Service Association, which later became recognized as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.<br><br>Joseph Binder, a Viennese artist, was hired by Organization secretary E.A. van Steenwyk to generate a poster that included a blue Greek cross. Van Steenwyk utilized the symbol to determine his company's well being 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 wellness plans around the country met certain standards.<br><br>The AHA continued to use the symbol until 1960 when the Blue Cross Association was founded. The two organizations remained affiliated until 1972.<br><br>The shield symbol was created in Buffalo, New York by Carl Metzger in 1939 and the very first official Blue Shield plan was founded in California that same year. Carl Metzger was an early pioneer in the Blue movement and he wanted a [http://www.commercialpropertyadvisors.com/ commercialpropertyadvisors.com] design that would distinguish the new medical service plan.<br><br>It soon flourished as the number of Blue Shield Plans kept on expanding. In 1948 the symbol was informally adopted by nine plans referred to as the Associated Medical Care Strategy, which was later renamed the National Association of Blue Shield Plans.<br><br>Over the years, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield healthcare insurance ideas 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 [http://www.bedbugbully.com/ bedbugbully.com] became 1 of the most familiar symbols in America.<br><br>To show you how big it has become, in 2003, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association took [http://ucc-usa.org/ user generated content] in $182.7 billion in income. The evolution of managed wellness care in the United States is intimately linked to the designs of Blue Cross-Blue Shield.