BCBS of Michigan alleged to have crushed pilot physical therapy program it saw as competition

News outlets continue to report on the lawsuits against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

USA Today: "As health care costs soared nationally, a small Michigan firm gave Ford Motor Co. a proposal to cut its physical therapy costs. The automaker signed up for an in-state pilot program, which was so successful Ford expanded it last year to cover about 390,000 employees, retirees and their families nationwide." But court "records allege Blue Cross used its position as the state's dominant insurer to try to crush TheraMatrix as it worked to also sign up Chrysler and General Motors. A USA TODAY review of hundreds of pages of e-mails and internal documents that are part of a lawsuit TheraMatrix filed against Blue Cross indicates that TheraMatrix's efforts to carve out a niche market in managing outpatient physical therapy costs was seen as a threat by officials at Blue Cross and by some Michigan hospitals" (Young, 11/10).

Detroit Free Press: "The domination of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan throughout the state makes it difficult for other insurers to compete and drives up insurance costs for consumers with other plans, the executive director of Michigan's largest health insurance trade association said. … In fact, several larger insurers, including Humana and Aetna, recently have stopped selling some lines of insurance, in part because of this problem, said Richard Murdock of the Michigan Association of Health Plans" (Anstett, 11/10).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.