One day in prison for every dollar received. Fraud is fraud . . . whether or not it is white-collar fraud.

The notion that for-profit health insurance represents the eternal order of things is specious. At one time, the largest health insurer in Kentucky and several other states was Blue Cross & Blue Shield. Kentucky Blue Cross was established in 1938 as a non-profit hospital services organization and initially funded by $1,500 donations by six non-profit hospitals and a $3,000 loan from the Louisville Community Chest. From that time until 1993, Blue Cross & Blue Shield was an extremely successful enterprise and contributed significantly to the well-being of Kentuckians.

In 1993, the officers of Kentucky Blue Cross & Blue Shield and Anthem of Indiana, a for-profit company, submitted a merger request to the Kentucky Insurance Commissioner, who approved it. This, in effect, converted charitable assets to for-profit assets, thereby shafting millions of Kentuckians who had supported Blue Cross & Blue Shield over the decades and policyholders who by law had an equity interest in the assets of Blue Cross & Blue Shield.

Kentucky’s Attorney General later filed suit to recover the converted charitable assets of Blue Cross & Blue Shield and in 1999, the court created a $45 million dollar charitable trust and directed Anthem to fund it immediately. Forty-five million dollars seems like quite a bit of money until we realize that Wellpoint, which owns Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield, paid their CEO a total of S42.8 million in 2006, 2007, and 2008 and has by now spent another $13.1 million on her, which means she got more than Kentucky.

The people who founded the “Blues” did not envision organizations whose sole reason for existence was profit for shareholders. Those “socialists” just wanted hospitals to remain solvent and patients to get care. A system focused solely on those two goals would surely “bend the cost curve.”