ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9602050056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield is proposing that its 200,000 health insurance subscribers would receive shares of its stock.
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
Two-thirds of the shares would go to companies, government agencies and organizations with group health plans. The stock would go to the employer, not to employees.
The remaining one-third of shares would go to 184,383 individual policy holders that include those insured through the Farm Bureau, seniors with Medicare supplements and others under 65.
WHAT'S GOING ON
The non-profit mutual insurance company Trigon, the state's largest insurer, wants to convert to a for-profit stock company.
The State Corporation Commission must OK the switch.
Trigon benefited from tax breaks over the years and has agreed to put $159 million worth of stock in trust: $95 million is in the governor's proposed budget.
A bill pending before the General Assembly would set the trust amount firmly at $159 million.
Consumer groups don't like that idea because it would ban the SCC from raising the value of a foundation.
The Trigon bills get their first hearing Monday before a House Appropriations subcommittee and the full Senate Commerce and Labor Committee.
OPPOSING VIEWS
"This is perhaps the most important case ever to go before the SCC. We think the General Assembly should leave the decision to the commission."
- Consumer advocate Jean Ann Fox
"Everybody who wants to chip off a piece of the Trigon pie ... [is] taking it out of the policy holders' shares. You're taking it out of the [shares of] senior citizens, the farmers or school districts."
- Trigon spokeswoman Brooke Taylor
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart: color.by CNB