Highmark

They didn't use a medical analogy, but they could have. If Highmark Inc. and Independence Blue Cross are allowed to merge, will their best practices be "catching," leading to cost savings and better service, as their executives predict? Or will they infect each other with their worst tendencies? That was David O'Donnell's point of view, expressed yesterday in the third day of hearings on a proposed merger that would create the state's largest health insurer. Testimony continues today at the Sheraton Center City.

When it comes to their proposed merger to create the state's largest insurer, executives at Independence Blue Cross and Highmark Inc. insist they won't play hardball when it comes to negotiating with doctors and hospitals over payments for their services, despite their market clout. But the head of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, who testified yesterday at Insurance Department hearings on the merger, isn't buying it. "It's like, 'Yeah, I'll love you in the morning,' " society president Peter Lund quipped in an interview after his testimony.

PUBLIC "information hearings" have started on the proposed merger of Independence Blue Cross and Highmark Inc. that could create the largest health-insurance company in Pennsylvania. The key word is "information. " The state Insurance Department will review Blue Cross and Highmark data to determine if the new mega-insurer, which will cover about 50 percent of the statewide market, meets state standards for businesses, and how it would affect competition and the consumer. But the "information hearings" don't allow for an independent public advocate to question the two insurers about their plans.

When Carrie Schuck's father died 11 years ago, Schuck, now a 21-year-old college senior, couldn't find anyone who could relate to a 10-year-old's sense of loss and instability. "Even my teachers didn't understand," she said, her voice shaking, describing the isolation she felt when her classmates made cards for Father's Day. But a children's grief-counseling program sponsored by Highmark Inc., Pittsburgh's predominant health insurer, helped her deal with her loss. It is no surprise that in Pittsburgh, home town of Highmark Inc., with its syringe-like building dominating the skyline, witnesses like Carrie Schuck came to praise Highmark's civic engagement yesterday during the first of three public hearings held by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department on the proposed merger between Highmark and Philadelphia's Independence Blue Cross.

This week in Pittsburgh, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department begins an exhausting three-city marathon of day and evening public hearings on the proposed merger of Independence Blue Cross and Highmark Inc. More than 90 people have lined up to give their opinions - starting Tuesday - on the proposed merger, which would create the largest health insurer in the state and one of the top five in the nation. The number of people set to testify is far exceeded by the volume of documents filed - more than 800 of them with questions from the Insurance Department, responses from the companies, comments from the public, and responses to those.

The proposed merger of Independence Blue Cross and Pittsburgh's expansion-minded Highmark Inc. would create the biggest health insurer in Pennsylvania. But to Kenneth R. Melani, Highmark's chief executive officer, important opportunities in the merger lie beyond the state's borders. Melani is picturing, for example, a company in New Jersey that uses AmeriHealth Administrators to handle its health insurance paperwork. AmeriHealth is a subsidiary of Independence Blue Cross. If the companies were united, "we could use AmeriHealth's sales force" to persuade that company to offer Highmark's vision-insurance plans to its employees, Melani said.

The proposed merger of Independence Blue Cross and Pittsburgh's expansion-minded Highmark Inc. would create the biggest health insurer in Pennsylvania. But to Kenneth R. Melani, Highmark's chief executive officer, important opportunities in the merger lie beyond the state's borders. Melani is picturing, for example, a company in New Jersey that uses AmeriHealth Administrators to handle its health insurance paperwork. AmeriHealth is a subsidiary of Independence Blue Cross. If the companies were united, "we could use AmeriHealth's sales force" to persuade that company to offer Highmark's vision-insurance plans to its employees, Melani said.

Like all merging companies, health insurers Highmark Inc. and Independence Blue Cross talk a lot about synergy - combining elements of their businesses to create a stronger whole. And that's what worries businessman Harry Kovar. Kovar says he thinks the proposed merger, which would create Pennsylvania's largest health insurer, might well have the ability to "synergy" his pharmacy-benefits management business and others like it right to the sidelines. "What we are saying is that we want to compete," Kovar, chief executive officer of WellNet Healthcare Inc., said in an interview in his office in Southampton.

Stop Foxwoods Gloria Dei (Old Swede's Church), at Christian Street and Columbus Boulevard, was established in the early 1600s, and its current building was completed in 1700, making it the oldest church in Pennsylvania and second-oldest church building in continuous use in the nation. This church pre-dates the beginnings of our great country, and now it is perilously close to being unalterably damaged. Despite our greatest protestations, it appears that Foxwoods may soon begin construction of a casino less than three-tenths of a mile from Philadelphia's national park and historic buildings.

A hearing on the proposed Independence Blue Cross and Highmark Inc. merger took an unexpected twist in Harrisburg yesterday. Instead of focusing on the merger, which would create the largest health insurer in the state, it was all about how much the Insurance Department's consultants were being paid - and, more surprising, who was paying them. Independence Blue Cross, of Philadelphia, and Highmark, of Pittsburgh, are not only paying for their own consultants, but are also footing the bill for the department's consultants.