Blue Shield

Carl Weibel Strein, 85, health insurance executiveCarl Weibel Strein, former director of computer operations for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland, died Friday of heart failure at the home of his son in Parkton. The former Ednor Gardens resident was 85.Mr. Strein joined the health insurer in 1952 and retired in 1976. Earlier, he had worked for the Social Security Administration and the state of Pennsylvania.During the 1960s and 1970s, he was a consultant to area businesses that were installing computer systems.

More than 1,200 food fans flocked to Martin's West to nosh on concoctions cooked up by 125 Baltimore-area "Men Who Cook." The event was the seventh annual Gourmet Chefs of Distinction, sponsored by the Baltimore Metropolitan chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.Among those dishing it out: Bill Jews, president and CEO of CareFirst Blue Cross and Blue Shield (pasta salad); Frederick Douglass, president of Douglass Enterprises (Baltimore wings); Jeffrey Pope, Bell Atlantic software engineer (coddies)

With investment and other income rising, CareFirst Inc., the holding company for the Maryland and District of Columbia Blue Cross plans, yesterday posted a 30.5 percent increase in operating profit for the second quarter.The operating profit was $26.9 million for the quarter that ended June 30, up from the $21.7 million earned in the second quarter of 1997.The CareFirst plans posted a hefty increase in revenue of $985.6 million for the quarter, up 16.9 percent from $843.1 million in the second quarter last year.

The Fair Care Foundation, a consumer group fighting the combination of District of Columbia and Maryland Blue Cross plans, filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing management of the District plan of breaching its responsibilities.In a complaint filed in District of Columbia Superior Court, the consumer group said the District plan's trustees and officers violated the plan's charitable status when they agreed to a combination of operations between Blue Cross Blue Shield of the National Capital Area and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland.

Doctors Health Inc. of Owings Mills has filed for bankruptcy protection and reorganization.Company officials could not be reached for comment on the Chapter 11 filing. But Blue Cross officials confirmed that Doctors Health has canceled its largest remaining contract, under which it cared for about 8,800 Blue Cross HMO patients.Dr. Scott Rifkin, who resigned as chairman of Doctors Health in April but remains a stockholder and a participating physician, said yesterday that he believes the company has about 25 employees managing medical practices.

Breaking through a territorial boundary that has been in place for more than half a century, the Maryland and District of Columbia Blue Cross plans combined their operations yesterday under a new holding company.The consolidated operation, called CareFirst Inc., will be the seventh largest Blue Cross plan in the country, said William L. Jews, who has been chief executive of the Maryland plan. He now is president and chief executive officer of the holding company.At first, there will be no impact on the 2.3 million subscribers to the two plans and little change for most of the 5,000 employees, Jews said.

TOWSON -- The county refinanced $75 million in bonds Wednesday with Salomon Smith Barney in a competitive bond sale, which is expected to save county taxpayers more than $3 million during the 14-year payback schedule.The county got a new 4.49 percent interest rate instead of the former rates, which ranged from 5.7 percent to 6.6 percent.Man charged in theft of Blue Cross computersOWINGS MILLSOWINGS MILLS -- A Carney man accused of illegally selling equipment stolen from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland Inc. has been charged with four counts of felony theft, Maryland State Police said yesterday.

CareFirst Inc., the parent of the Maryland and District of Columbia Blue Cross plans, reported essentially flat earnings yesterday of $18 million for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, down from $18.5 million in the corresponding quarter last year.The slight decline in profitability came despite record revenue as increases in medical costs offset top-line gains.Revenue for the quarter was $976.4 million, up 12.5 percent from $867.9 million in the third quarter of 1997. But while revenue was up $108 million, medical claims were up by $123 million.

Buoyed by increasing profitability in its HMOs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland yesterday reported an $8.2 million profit for the last quarter of 1997, up 4 percent from $7.9 million in the last quarter the previous year.Revenue for the quarter was $571 million, up 17.5 percent from $486 million in the corresponding period a year earlier. That pushed Blue Cross to its first $2 billion year, with annual revenue of $2.2 billion, up 11.4 percent from $1.96 billion in 1996. The increase was driven by a 6.6 percent increase in enrollment, to 1.5 million, and some premium increases.

A phony psychologist who once used a fake resume to land a job running Crownsville Hospital Center has been jailed in Michigan for lying about his age on a driver's license application.Haroon R. Ansari was sentenced to 30 days in jail Thursday after he pleaded guilty to attempted false certification in Ingham County Circuit Court in Lansing, Mich.Ansari, who turned 30 in March, claimed to be 36 on the application so that his age would be consistent with false credentials that he put on his resume, said Anthony Flores, an Ingham County prosecutor.

Francis C. Ehart, a retired stationery company executive and former longtime Linthicum Heights resident, died Tuesday of a cerebral hemorrhage at the Hospice of the Chesapeake in Harwood. He was 93. Mr. Ehart was born in Baltimore and raised on Marshall Street. He attended city public schools until the eighth grade and later earned his General Educational Development diploma while attending night school. In 1931, Mr. Ehart began working as an office boy for D.N. Owens & Co. Inc., a Baltimore business forms company located on Calvert Street.

John M.T. Finney III, a retired Blue Cross and Blue Shield executive who had been active in Boy Scouts, died Sunday of pneumonia at the College Manor nursing home in Lutherville. The former longtime Roland Park resident was 85. Mr. Finney was born in Baltimore and raised on Circle Road in Ruxton. He was the son of Dr. John M.T. Finney Jr., a noted Baltimore surgeon who was a founder of Union Memorial Hospital. He was a 1942 graduate of McDonogh School and attended Princeton University.

Marie C. Wirth, who helped create a program that expanded medical insurance for seniors, died of aspiration pneumonia Sept. 26 at the Pickersgill Retirement Community in Towson. She was 88 and a longtime Loch Raven resident. Born Marie Catherine Parks in Towson, she graduated from Towson Catholic High School in 1934, said her son, Gary Wirth of Towson. In 1937 she married Carl A. Wirth of Loch Raven, who was a member of the Maryland National Guard and was stationed in Texas during World War II. Mrs. Wirth traveled frequently by train between Baltimore and Texas during those years.

In another defeat for a Blue Cross plan seeking to switch to for-profit operation, the insurance commissioner in the state of Washington yesterday rejected a for-profit conversion proposed by Premera Blue Cross. Maryland's CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield had its controversial plan to become a for-profit blocked 16 months ago. Since then, the Kansas Supreme Court upheld that state's earlier rejection of a conversion, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina withdrew its conversion application, and Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey announced it was dropping its exploration of conversion.

Hume Opie Annan Jr., a retired vice president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland, died of cancer May 7 at Sacred Heart Hospital in Cumberland. He was 77 and a resident of Fort Ashby, W.Va., and formerly lived in Loch Raven Village. He was born in Tampa, Fla., and raised in Cumberland, and he worked his studies at Princeton University around merchant marine service in World War II. He graduated from the school in 1949 and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honors fraternity. After serving in the Army from 1950 to 1952, he moved to Baltimore and became vice president of corporate planning and research for Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

When a phalanx of lobbyists descended on Annapolis with the $1.3 billion proposal to sell Maryland's Blue Cross and Blue Shield to a California-based, for-profit corporation, Michael E. Busch was among the first lawmakers to raise a stink. Then a committee chairman, Busch decried the move as inconsistent with the mission of the state's largest nonprofit insurer. "I would encourage every citizen to contact their legislator on how they feel on this issue," he said in January 2002. Scores of citizens did, and the deal collapsed when it was revealed that the executives pushing for approval stood to gain lucrative bonuses.

DOVER, Del. - Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Delaware presented its state insurance commissioner yesterday a plan under which it would remain affiliated with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield but would be able to divorce itself from the regional health insurer if it was unhappy with the results of Maryland's efforts to reform CareFirst. The reshaped relationship between the Delaware Blues and CareFirst gives the Delaware plan "control of our destiny in case things did not work out, while continuing to have the benefits of our successful affiliation," Max S. Bell Jr., board chairman of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Delaware (BCBSD)

The boards of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware and of its corporate parent, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, announced an agreement yesterday on changes that would make it easier for the Delaware plan to split off from CareFirst if it becomes unhappy with the company's direction. The changes would have no impact if the Delaware board continues to be happy with its ties to CareFirst, said Max S. Bell Jr., chairman of the Delaware plan's board and one of three Delaware members on the CareFirst parent board.

Health insurance is a highly regulated industry, but state officials who oversee the industry have bumped up against a powerful entity they can't regulate - the national Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. In Maryland and North Carolina, regulators and legislators have been stymied at times in trying to deal with the local Blue Cross Blue Shield entity when the national association has threatened to pull its trademark and threaten the viability of the local insurer. "If there's a novel issue rising out of what happened in Maryland, it's the role of the association and the power that they have," said Steven B. Larsen, the former Maryland insurance commissioner whose scathing report halted CareFirst, the Blue Cross plan in Maryland, from converting to a for-profit company from nonprofit.

Richard E. Gillespie, a retired Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland executive and philanthropist, died of cancer Thursday at the Fairhaven retirement community in Sykesville. He was 87. Mr. Gillespie was born and raised in York, Pa., and after graduating from high school in 1933, moved to Baltimore, where he attended the Peabody Conservatory and the Johns Hopkins University. His college studies were interrupted by World War II. He enlisted in the Army, where he directed a jazz band that toured stateside military bases.