WellPoint Watch Launches Campaign to Urge Customers to Demand Public Hearings in WellPoint/WellChoice Merger

Action Center allows Empire Blue Cross customers to email Insurance Regulators to air grievances 


INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 19  /PRNewswire/ -- The following release is being issued by WellPoint Watch. Wellpoint Watch is brought to you by the Service Employees International Union and is not affiliated with WellPoint Inc.:

On September 27, 2005, WellPoint (NYSE:WLP) announced its intention to purchase WellChoice (NYSE:WC), the parent company of Empire Blue Cross. WellPoint's last acquisition of a major insurance company unleashed a wave of criticism from policymakers in California and Georgia in 2004.  Yet the company looks to grow still larger.  A new report on the company's track record provides Blue Cross customers in New York and New Jersey with the knowledge they need to advocate for scrutiny of WellPoint's proposed acquisition as the deal comes before state regulators.  The website, http://www.wellpointwatch.org/mergers.html, also allows Empire customers to email and fax key decision makers in New York and New Jersey asking them to hold a public hearing and urges them to demand concessions similar to those that insurance regulators in California and Georgia did during WellPoint's last merger.

Bottom Line: WellPoint's War on Patients and Doctors documents a history of abuses by the company and a pattern of unfairly denying reasonable and medically necessary claims, even in life-and-death situations. The report, along with other resources for Wellpoint and WellChoice customers, is available at http://www.wellpointwatch.org/. Bottom Line also provides valuable information for companies and organizations that are considering changing their health coverage to another provider.

The release of the report and website is part of a campaign to inform current and future WellPoint customers about the company's business practices so that they may become more actively involved in their state's regulatory and consumer protection processes.

Among the findings in the report that can help inform regulators' decisions on the WellPoint-WellChoice deal are:

  -- WellPoint increased health insurance premiums in California just three
     months after the merger closed, even though Wellpoint CEO Larry
     Glasscock publicly stated, "I want to reaffirm once again, and I've
     said this several times, that premiums will not be raised as a result
     of this merger."

  -- After a nasty public fight, California regulators won $250 million in
     concessions from WellPoint to benefit underserved communities before
     they approved the merger.  Georgia regulators also required that
     Wellpoint make $126.5 million in concessions.

  -- WellPoint has paid almost $400 million in the past three months as a
     result of settlements or damages stemming from lawsuits brought against
     the company. Among the cases is a $1.5 million judgment paid to the
     United States which alleged that Anthem included "impermissible profit"
     in its charges to the Government, and a $198 million settlement of its
     share of a federal racketeering lawsuit in which Wellpoint and several
     of its competitors were accused of using "coercive" measures to
     "defraud physicians, enrich themselves at physicians' and patients'
     expense, break contracts, and otherwise jeopardize patient welfare."


DATASOURCE: Service Employees International Union



CONTACT: Paul Price for WellPoint Watch, [phone]



Web site:  http://www.wellpointwatch.org/mergers.html

http://www.wellpointwatch.org/ 

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