Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) is a federation of 38 separate health insurance organizations and companies in the United States. Combined, they directly or indirectly provide health insurance to over 99 million Americans. The history of Blue Cross dates back to 1929, while the history of Blue Shield dates to 1939. The Blue Cross Association dates back to 1960, while its Blue Shield counterpart was created in 1948. The two organizations merged in 1982, forming the current association.

Read more about Blue Cross Blue Shield Association:  History, Current Organization, List of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Companies, Criticism and Controversy

Famous quotes containing the words blue, cross, shield and/or association:

    “Tom-tom, c’est moi. The blue guitar
    And I are one.”
    —Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    “Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!
    Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour
    high—I see you also face to face.
    Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!
    On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
    home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
    And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.”
    —Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

    “The lichen on the rocks is a rude and simple shield which beginning and imperfect Nature suspended there. Still hangs her wrinkled trophy.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
    —Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)