INSURANCE

The Public Health Service Act is a United States federal law enacted in 1946. The full act is captured under Title 42 of the United States Code "The Public Health and Welfare", Chapter 6A "Public Health Service".

Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), founded in 1936, is a non-investor-owned mutual insurance company that operates the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

With about 13 million members in its health plans, HCSC is the largest non-investor-owned health insurance company in the nation and the fourth largest health insurer overall.

HCSC, through its Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, offers PPO, HMO, POS, traditional indemnity, and Medicare Supplemental health plans. Through its subsidiary, Dental Network of America, HCSC offers group dental plans.

In addition, HCSC’s life insurance subsidiaries, Fort Dearborn Life Insurance Company in Illinois and Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Company in Colorado, operating as Preferred Financial Group, offer life insurance and financial products.

HCSC operated as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois until 1998 when it merged with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. In 2001, HCSC acquired Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico. In 2005, HCSC merged with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma.

HCSC’s nearly 16,000 employees are located in more than 55 offices in several states. HCSC is recognized by DiversityInc as one of the top five companies in the United States and is the highest ranking health insurer on the magazine’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity list.

Among its varied community involvement activities, HCSC sponsors CareVans in each of the states where it has a Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plan. The program uses mobile clinics to provide health care services such as childhood immunizations and health information to underserved communities, both inner city and rural.

HCSC maintains its headquarters in Chicago and has a Standard and Poor’s "A+" rating, a Moody's "A1" rating and a rating of "A+" from A.M. Best Co.

HCSC is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) is a system of "managed competition" through which employee benefits are provided to full-time permanent civilian employees of the United States Government. It allows insurance companies and employee associations such as labor unions to develop health, dental, and allied plans to be marketed to governmental employees.

These plans are available to employees during an "open enrollment" once probationary status has been passed by a new employee, during which time the employee, if accepting enrollment, will be covered fully in any plan he or she chooses without limitations regarding "pre-existing conditions". After this, changes can be made only upon a "life-change" event such as marriage, divorce, adoption or birth of a child, or change in employment status of a spouse, or during the annual "open season", during which employees can enroll, disenroll, or change from one plan to another. The exact dates change from year to year, but basically is from the Monday of the second full week in November through Monday, the second full week of December.

Premiums vary from plan to plan and are paid in part by the employer (the U. S. Government agency that the employee works for) and the remainder by the employee: the employer pays an amount equal to 72% of the average plan premium for self-only or family coverage (not to exceed 75% of the premium for the selected plan), and the employee pays the rest. Certain employees (such as postal workers) have a higher portion of their premiums paid as the result of collective bargaining agreements.

Some plans, particularly the one offered by some employee unions such as the National Association of Letter Carriers, and by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association on behalf of its member insurers, are nationwide; others are regionally-available plans such as HMOs. This plan is open to members of United States Congress; in the 2004 presidential campaign, Senator John Kerry proposed opening enrollment in this plan to all Americans, which would certainly have changed it drastically.

See for more information: www.opm.gov/insure and www.febblue.org

BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD'S FEDERAL EMPLOYEE PROGRAM

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Associations’ Federal Employee Program (FEP) administers the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Service Benefit Plan, the largest privately underwritten health insurance contract in the world. Approximately 54 percent of all federal employees and retirees who receive their health care benefits through the government’s Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) are members of the Service Benefit Plan - receiving health coverage through their local Blue Plans.

See for more information: www.bcbs.com and www.febblue.org