5/4/23 Mike Causey
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I've been spending a lot of time talking with Blue Cross. We've met with them numerous times, met with their CEO, Dr. Satunde, and his team for almost two hours earlier this week trying to make sure that if they're determined to push this bill through the legislature, that they make sure that they have the safeguards to protect the policy holders and the consumers. Right now my concerns have not been addressed. I talked to Blue Cross again today and my concern is they rushed this bill through the house with very little debate or discussion, got it passed last week, and now today I find out they put it on the Senate Commerce Insurance Committee and trying to fast track it again. I did talk to the chairman of that committee and one of the bill sponsors and asked to speak, and they said that I would be allowed to speak, and hopefully they'll postpone it from today till next week, but it's House Bill 346, and it's just very troubling, and I think people need to take time to go on the website and look at it, the legislature's website, ncleag.gov, nclg.gov. So it's needless to say that you are quite opposed to this going through, and you were saying it should impact, if it does, it would impact the bottom line for many North Carolinians, it would cost them more money? Well, definitely, because if you take money out of the Blue Cross health insurance company and move it somewhere else, there's less money that's there in that company to offset any losses or sofel, and they've had losses in recent years, but they've had enough earnings from their investments to offset those losses. So when you're moving policyholder dollars out of policy reserves or anywhere under that Blue Cross insurance company, there has to be safeguards and protections for the benefit of the policyholders, and that's all we're trying to do at the Department of Insurance is to make sure the people are looked after. I believe Blue Cross, if they have all this extra money, what should be done is returning some of that money to the policyholders or lowering the premiums that people are really struggling to make ends meet in many cases, and then they have to come up with a considerable money to send Blue Cross for health insurance premiums. So any help that Blue Cross can give their policyholders would benefit everybody. I'm talking with North Carolina Insurance Commissioner, Mike Konzibout, House Bill 346 regarding Blue Cross, North Carolina. You may have said this earlier, but I just want to make sure I totally understand. There's got to be some reason why they would propose a bill like this, some sort of an advantage or something that needs to be improved for Blue Cross of North Carolina. What the legislators who are proposing this who want it to go forward, what are they saying is their reason for making changes? Well, it's Blue Cross that's actually stated the reason Blue Cross has told me and told the legislature that they need this in order to compete. I disagree, Blue Cross says they need to be able to compete with larger national companies. Well, and I'm taking numbers from 2021, and in 2021, Blue Cross, North Carolina out of the personal health insurance market had almost 83% of the personal health insurance market in North Carolina, and when it comes to the group insurance, comprehensive group insurance market in 2021, Blue Cross had almost 80%. It was the actual number was 79.6%. So they are by far the largest health insurance company in the state. Now it's true that they found out in January that they're losing the state health plan effective in 2025, and their market share could go down, and probably will go down in future years, but I believe competition's good. I believe we need more health insurance companies doing business in North Carolina to give consumers
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