President of Anthem Blue Cross Resigns

Published: Wed 21 Jul 2010

Thomas Kristoffersen

The president of Anthem Blue Cross of California, Leslie Margolin, announced on Tuesday that she would resign after the company's attempted rate hike served as President Obama's poster child for outrageous health care expenses.

Margolin said yesterday that she is leaving California's biggest for-profit health insurer to head Transforming Health Care, a coalition of hospitals, providers, and consumer advocates.

Margolin said in a statement that the insurer made headlines previously for its rate increases, but in the two-and-a-half years Margolin headed the company, she assisted in "dramatically improving Anthem's group customer satisfaction and overall position in the market," among other accomplishments.

Kristin Binns, a spokesperson for the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross, Wellpoint, said that Margolin's stepping down "is not in any way related to the individual rate filing in California."

The Notorious Rate Hike

In February, Anthem drew public ire after proposing a premium increase that averaged about 25 percent for individual health plans, with some customers looking at rate hikes as high as 39 percent.

Obama used the rate increase as evidence of a broken health care system in his crusade to pass his health care reform legislation earlier this year. The secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, pushed Anthem to explain how it could require premium increases when its parent corporation was experiencing soaring profits.

In the final three months of 2009, Indianapolis-based Wellpoint posted earnings of $2.74 billion.

Anthem retracted its rate hikes in April when California regulators discovered accounting mistakes in the company's proposal that would have led to higher profits.

The health insurance company now claims that it intends to raise rates by an average of 14 percent, limiting increases at 20 percent.

In a statement, Wellpoint expressed its gratitude for Margolin's leadership, extolling her as "a champion of innovative initiatives that improve patient safety and quality outcomes."

Transforming Health Care could not be reached for comment, as no contact information was available. A consulting group that bore the same name claimed it was unaffiliated with Margolin.