Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Minnesota

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota was created in a June 1, 1972 merger of Minnesota Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. The organization and its affiliates provide a variety of products and services, including health plans for employers and individuals; life insurance; long-term care plans; pharmacy benefits management; administrative services for self-insured groups; managed care services for workers' compensation; behavioral health care; and health and wellness programs. It administers the federal Medicare programs, and serves as the writing carrier for the Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association. It also offers a variety of other employee health benefits services through several for-profit subsidiaries. In 2004 it was the largest health plan in Minnesota, providing health coverage to more than 2.6 million members.

Minnesota Blue Cross was a nonprofit organization incorporated as the Minnesota Hospital Service Association. Organized by a group of Minnesota hospitals in 1933, it was Minnesota's first health plan and was based in St. Paul. The Association was one of the 90 approved non-profit plans in the United States and Canada, authorized by contracting hospitals to furnish hospital care through contracting hospitals to groups of employed persons and their families. These plans were known as "Blue Cross Plans" and each plan served a particular area. The contracting hospitals of the Minnesota Blue Cross Plan agreed to furnish hospital service according to the subscriber's contract and were reimbursed out of the monthly payments made by subscribers to the Minnesota Hospital Service Association. Minnesota Blue Cross operated as a non-profit corporation, and not under the state insurance laws. A companion plan, called Mii, incorporated in 1954 as Minnesota Indemnity, Inc. and organized under the insurance laws of Minnesota, helped pay for medical-surgical care. It was owned and operated by the Minnesota Hospital Service Association. These two organizations (MHSA/Blue Cross and Mii) made health care service on a pre-payment basis available to residents of Minnesota.

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