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BlueService is the difference that makes the difference.

75 Years of the Blues

In 1929 Justin Ford Kimball conceived one of the earliest health insurance plans, providing limited hospital coverage for Dallas-area schoolteachers.

Covering America — 75 years and counting

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Blue model for health care financing

During the past 75 years, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans have grown from humble beginnings to now serving the health care financing needs of more than 88 million people – or one-in-three Americans. Today, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Brands are the nation's oldest and largest family of health benefits companies and the most recognized Brands in the industry.

Blue Cross was born out of necessity in the Great Depression. In 1929, a pioneering businessman named Justin Ford Kimball conceived of a way to assure more than 1,300 Dallas schoolteachers 21 days of hospital care by having them make small monthly payments of 50 cents to Baylor University Hospital.

Prior to 1929, various local experiments with prepaid health care were explored. However, as millions of Americans found themselves unemployed or in otherwise perilous financial situations, a new sense of urgency emerged from this era of need. Many found it difficult to face the day-to-day challenges of paying a mortgage and putting food on the table and here was not much left over to pay for medical costs associated with an illness or accident.

During this same time in the Pacific Northwest, what would become the Blue Shield concept was growing out of the lumber and mining camps. Serious and chronic illnesses were common among workers in hazardous jobs and camp owners began to provide medical care for their workers. The creation of “medical service bureaus” evolved from arrangements made with local physicians – who were paid a flat monthly fee for their services.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield: Timeline History, 1929 - 1959

Blue Cross and Blue Shield: Timeline History, 1960 - 2004  

Visit the national Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association's Web site