By: Patrick Springer
June 8, 2015
Inforum.com
FARGO – The Red River is a border the Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in North Dakota and Minnesota agree not to cross in selling health insurance to customers.
Those exclusive territorial agreements form a hallmark of Blue Cross Blue Shield plans nationwide—which collectively insure one of every three Americans—and are at the heart of a pair of federal lawsuits alleging civil antitrust.
The lawsuits, pending in U.S. District Court in Alabama, were brought separately by providers as well as by individual and small group purchasers of health insurance, and seek class-action status.
Most of the 37 Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in the United States limit their operations to a single state, including those in North Dakota and Minnesota.
The only reason for the self-imposed geographical marketing restrictions, the providers’ lawsuit contends, is to protect the insurers from competition. The restrictions are maintained by an illegal “market allocation conspiracy,” the doctors and clinics argue