Anatomy of a CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield lie

By: John Aravosis

I decided to attempt to check my CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance policy online last night, to see how much of my prescription drug benefit I still have left (CareFirst only covers $1500 a year in prescription drugs for me, that's it - the same amount they covered in 1999 when I first got the policy, its never gone up, even though my premia have tripled).

So I go on their site to find out how much drug coverage I have remaining for this year, and of course I can't find out because that would be too useful. What I did find, however, was a whopping lie that Blue Cross seems to be using to convince customers that they're getting such a great deal. Here's what I found for my recent purchase of Simvastatin from Costco (for cholesterol):



What the above data is telling me is that I bought 90 pills of Simvastatin, a three month supply, and even though I should have paid $441.37, oh but for the graces of CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, I only spent $9.99. And BCBS even calculated out how much money I saved by having their oh-so-generous policy - a whopping $438.38 on just this one drug purchase.

Too bad it's a lie.

The reason I only paid $9.99 isn't because Blue Cross got me such a good deal. I paid $9.99 because that's what Costco charges for the drug, no thanks to BCBS. Costco doesn't charge $441.37, which Blue Cross would like you to think. Costco only charges $9.99 for 90 pills. So, actually, Blue Cross didn't save me a dime.

But Blue Cross wants its customers to think that it's doing something wonderful for them. The sooner we tighten the regulations on these pathologic deceivers, the better.

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Good Point.