Pennsylvania Gets Real About Health Care 'REFORM'

The Philadelphia Inquirer has:

Pa.'s Blues to undergo unfair-trade inquiry

By Stacey Burling

Inquirer Staff Writer

The Pennsylvania Insurance Department announced yesterday that it planned to investigate whether any of the state's four Blue Cross & Blue Shield insurance companies have engaged in "anticompetitive or unfair trade practices" that violate the law.

Examinations of Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Capital BlueCross, Highmark Inc., and Philadelphia-based Independence Blue Cross will begin this month and are to be finished by early 2010.

"When Highmark Blue Shield and Independence Blue Cross withdrew their consolidation proposal earlier this year, it was good news for consumers," Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario said. "But it did not improve the anticompetitive dynamics that remain at play in Pennsylvania's health-insurance marketplace."

The investigation will look at territorial restrictions, agreements among the Blues that may impede competition, and whether the Blues use their dominant market share - 60 percent of private health insurance - to unfair advantage. .....

THIS, is the sort of 'Health Care Cost Reduction' which America Needs. It Doesn't need Congress throwing Another $Trillion Dollars worth of Gasoline onto the Fire, to "Hold Down The Costs".

Hat Tip & Thanks to Fierce Healthcare for pointing this one out.