A Huntsville-based janitorial and lawn maintenance business has filed a class action suit against Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, making the same arguments brought up in a nationwide antitrust battle against the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and its 38 licensees.
The suit was filed on behalf of Joiner Superior Services Inc. this week in the Northern District of Alabama in Birmingham. The filing reiterates arguments brought up in the nationwide antitrust case, where plaintiffs argue that the BCBS Association and its licensees have divided and allocated health insurance markets across the country among themselves to eliminate competition.
As I previously reported, all the suits allege the trade association’s license agreement with the its 38 providers bar them from selling Blue Cross insurance in each others’ territories and violate federal antitrust laws resulting in diminished competition and higher premiums.
Reuters previously reported that more than two dozen antitrust suits have been filed in the case that has been consolidated in the Northern District of Alabama.
An attorney representing provider plaintiffs and officials with BCBS of Alabama could not immediately be reached for comment on this story. The company has previously told the BBJ that the suit lacked merit and noted that the insurer has the fifth-lowest family premiums in the nation among all employers.
The Joiner filing requests that plaintiffs be awarded “damages in the form of three times the amount by which premiums charged by (BCBS of Alabama) have been artificially inflated.”