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75 Years of the Blues

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

Today, Blue Cross and Blue Shield continues to be the leader in health care affordability through commissioning important research and creating consumer outreach programs and innovative product designs. As we celebrate 75 Years of Covering America, we can take pride in our legacy of achievements in health care.

1929

The prototype prepaid hospital plan upon which Blue Cross Plans were later based is created at Baylor University in Dallas, Texas. In just 10 years, enrollment in Blue health Plans will grow from just more than 1,300 covered lives to 3 million.

This poster from 1934 shows the first usage of the Blue Cross symbol.

1930

The Great Depression changes national priorities with greater emphasis on unemployment insurance and “old age” benefits.

1932

The National Labor Relations Act, requiring management to bargain with labor over “wages and conditions” is enacted and will become a catalyst for employer-based health benefits.

1933

America's first “Blue Cross Baby” was born in Durham, North Carolina. Her birth was the first in America to be covered by a health insurance family certificate that included maternity benefits. The entire cost of her delivery and her mother's 10-day hospital stay totaled $60.

1934

E.A. van Steenwyk, head of what would later be known as Blue Cross of Minnesota, commissioned a poster with the Blue Cross symbol on it. This was the first time the Blue Cross symbol was used.

1935

The Social Security Act is passed, omitting health insurance.

1937

The first meeting of Blue Plan executives is held in Chicago.

1939

Carl Metzger, head of the Buffalo Blue Shield Plan, commissioned the creation of the Blue Shield symbol, which combined a serpent with the U.S. Army Medical Corps insignia.

1944

Unemployment drops to 1.2 percent. Under normal conditions, employers would have lured workers from competitors with higher wages. However, during the World War II years, price and wage controls were strictly enforced. To compete for workers, employers began to offer health insurance benefits, giving rise to the employer-based system – still largely in place today.

1945

A group of women devised a way to begin offering hospital care coverage to their underserved rural community. With a $5,000 non-interest bearing loan from the Wyoming Farm Bureau, the smallest amount ever used to fund a Blue Plan, they organized the Wyoming Hospital Service, which later becomes Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Wyoming.

1946

The Blue Cross Commission, the early national organization of Blue Cross Plans, is created.

1947

Associated Medical Care Plans, the first national organization of Blue Shield Plans is formed.

1949

The Inter-Plan Service Benefit Bank is created as a coordinating mechanism to provide coverage for subscribers who were hospitalized away from home.

1950

The groundbreaking “U.S. Steel Agreement” went into effect between United States Steel Corporation, the Carnegie Pension Fund and Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania. The role played by the Pittsburgh-based Plan -- the “control Plan” that coordinated administration of benefits by local “participating Plans” – becomes the linchpin of the Blue System's ability to serve large national accounts.

1955

The spread of health insurance coverage – from less than 10 percent of the population having coverage in 1940 – grows to nearly 70 percent in 1955.

1959

Congress enacted the Federal Employees Health Benefits Act and the first FEP open enrollment period was held a year later. Today, FEP covers more than 4.2 million federal employees, retirees and their families.

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