Blue Cross Blue Shield Association implements key aspect of antitrust settlement the companies reached last year

By: Anna Wilde Mathews
Wall Street Journal
May 3, 2021
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said it dropped a rule that limited competition among its member insurers, moving to implement a key aspect of an antitrust settlement the companies reached last year with customers.
The settlement hasn’t won final approval from the federal judge presiding over the litigation, so it isn’t being fully implemented. But last Tuesday the group of insurers formally lifted a cap on the share of the members’ revenue that could come from business not under a Blue Cross Blue Shield brand, one of the moves it had promised under the settlement.
Previously, the rule was that two-thirds of a Blue licensee’s national net revenue from health plans and related services must stem from Blue-branded business.