After Discovery of Flawed Data, Anthem Blue Cross Won't Raise Rates for Californians

That threat of a 39% rate hike won't happen after all, or at least for now. Anthem Blue Cross withdrew their application to raise rates today after their reasoning to raise them was found to be flawed (its parent company yesterday also posted a 51 percent increase in profits in the first quarter of 2010).

"An independent investigation found that WellPoint based these excessive rate increases on faulty assumptions and inaccurate data," explained California Senator Dianne Feinstein today.

That investigation was launched by Insurance Commissioner and gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner. "In late January, because I was highly skeptical of the rate increase, I ordered an outside review to ensure that Anthem's filing complied with state law," he said. "Anthem agreed to delay their increase pending this review. The independent actuarial analysis found numerous and substantial errors in their filing that would have led to massive and unjustified rate increases. We notified Anthem of these errors and they admitted to the mistakes."