California is an interesting State in many ways and of course this uniqueness applies to our Blue Cross and Blue Shield relationship as it pertains to California Medicare supplement insurance plans. For most people in the U.S., Blue Cross Blue Shield is one company and in fact, the primary U.S. umbrella is BCBS together. Not so in California. In California, they are two separate carriers at the individual and family level which includes California Medigap plans. Let\’s take a look at how this works and compare the two options.

It\’s pretty typical when some one moves to California and is interested in a California Medicare supplement plan to get confused. What do you mean Blue Cross OR Blue Shield? BCBS together is the norm in most States traditionally with one covering the facility based care while the other covering physician costs much akin to how Medicare looks at costs with Part A and Part B under traditional California Medicare. In California, Anthem Blue Cross of California is a separate carrier altogether from Blue Shield of California although they both participate in the Blue Card network and fall under the Nationwide affiliation of the BCBS group. That\’s as far as the connection goes however between the two in California unless you\’re on large group or government insurance where they still operate in the traditional means. So what does all of this mean if we\’re looking for a California Medicare supplemental plan?

It\’s good news to California Medigap shoppers since we now have two strong competitors instead of one. One major issue in other States is that BCBS is so dominant and that\’s never good for competition within the California Medicare market for those State\’s residents. We do not have this issue. Both Anthem Blue Cross of California and Blue Shield of California offer a full array of Medigap plan offerings and ultimately, they have to compete with each other and the various strong California Medicare carriers in our State. There\’s no downside to this in terms of keeping supplemental plan prices competitive since the underlying benefits are standardized by the Federal government anyway.

Furthermore, both Anthem Blue Cross of California and Blue Shield of California have had long histories of offering California Medicare supplement plans as both come from a strong PPO background in the State which tends to lead to supplements as opposed to Medicare HMO\’s. Where as some carriers came to the California supplement party late in the game when they saw the writing on the wall for the original Medicare HMO\’s, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California already offered and maintained California Medicare supplement plans for decades which is important. To really manage supplement plans well, you need claims experience or better yet, experience with claims over years to that your plan pricing has stability. Both carriers have this experience and as a result, they tend to have some of the most competitive pricing on the California Medigap plan market.

Keep in mind that an F plan is an F plan regardless of the carrier so this makes it very easy to quickly quote and compare across many carriers including Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California. We\’re happy to help you with this process and feel fortunate that our State has many options for California Medicare supplement plans including both of the Blues.