Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia on health insurance costs

Monye Connolly,  president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, has fiercely defended Georgia's health insurance providers in a lengthy article published in AJC.

The health insurers in Georgia and nationally have certainly gotten some bad press in recent times. Ms Connolly, who has been with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia since 1986, challenges the widely-held belief that health insurers are to blame for inflating the cost of health insurance; for making “record” profits and for dropping coverage when members get sick.

“Medical costs explain nearly 89 percent of health plan increases in Georgia and nationwide,” according to a Rand study, says Connolly, "It is the increases in medical costs — doctors, hospitals, technology and pharmaceuticals — that drive increases in health insurance premiums in Georgia; not the other way around."

"Health insurers’ profits are far lower than those of hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, beverage or cleaning product makers, banks and restaurants." According to Kaiser Health News, “Even the elimination of insurers’ profits and executive compensation would lower health care spending by just 0.5 percent.”

Connolly concludes by stating, "Competition is alive and well in the insurance industry — nonprofit and for-profit insurers compete every day in Georgia. While Georgians have the choice of choosing nonprofit insurers, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, a for-profit insurer, covers more Georgians than any other. Contrary to the argument that private insurers 'have a monopoly', Georgia has more than 20 licensed insurers, and the competition is intense."