Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC

Backlash Grows Against NC Health Insurer's Anti-Reform Campaign

Zachary Roth | November 27, 2009, 11:04AM

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC)

This post was reported by Nick Pinto, and written by Nick Pinto and Zachary Roth

A North Carolina health insurer is facing a major backlash in the wake of its campaign to enlist customers in the fight against health-care reform.

The state's Insurance Commissioner has begun an inquiry into a mailer sent recently by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina -- and first revealed last month by TPMmuckraker -- that urged customers to lobby Senator Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) to vote against the public option. As we reported Tuesday, the state's Attorney General has opened his own probe of a barrage of follow-up robo-calls generated by the insurer. And state lawmakers continue to express their own and their constituents' outrage at the effort, with one legislator telling TPMmuckraker that some recipients of the mailer sent it back to BCBS attached to a brick.

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Blue Cross Blue Shield

NC Health Insurer Being Probed For Campaign Against Public Option

Nick Pinto | November 24, 2009, 6:21PM

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC)

BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina is being investigated by the state's attorney general for a recent mailer and spate of robo-calls in opposition to the public option, according to a company spokesman.

In October, TPMmuckraker reported that the insurance company had sent a mailer to millions of its customers asking them to urge the state's Democratic senator, Kay Hagan, (D-NC) to oppose a public option. The insurance company also deployed a related robocall.

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