The proposed sale of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana to Elevance Health is on hold for now.
State regulators postponed a hearing on the matter scheduled for today to October. That's because Blue Cross says it needs more time to address the concerns of shareholders and politicians.
If this deal is approved, will it benefit patients? According to one analyst, it very well could.
"If they can get lower pharmaceutical prices by being part of this group, that will be passed on to the consumer," UNO economics professor Walter "Dub" Lane told WWL's Tommy Tucker.
Lane said any cost savings created by Elevance buying Blue Cross/Blue Shield would be passed on to consumers because federal law prevents insurance companies from holding on to too much of their profits.
"Obamacare has a law that says all of these insurance companies must spend 85 percent of their premiums on health care," Lane said.
Lane also pointed to another area where the merger could help patients.
"The big companies have been able to invest in their technology," Lane noted. "That could be passed on to consumers."
Still some questions remain.
"Sometimes, the insurance company will deny payment on a particular patient, and the question is: if I have to go to Nashville or New York or call somebody on the phone to do that? Right now, they can actually go to Baton Rouge and sit down with a person," Lane said. "The promise is that will continue to happen. As far as I know, hearing that, the providers don't seem to be too nervous--the ones I've talked to."
While that question has seemingly been answered, Lane points out that Elevance and Blue Cross have not addressed another pressing question.
"The other question is: will the profit motive, in some sense, lead to poorer service in some way or another?" Lane said
The proposed sale of Blue Cross to Elevance is valued at around $2.5 billion. It also would remove one of the hallmarks of Blue Cross Blue Shield's Marketing.
"It's interesting to me that Blue Cross, if you ever listen to them do any talks, have always talked about they're so special because they're the only not-for-profit (insurance company) and how important that is, and now they're telling us that's not very important," Lane said. "They're kind of changing their story."
