Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
federation of 36 separate United States health insurance organizations and companies
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, also known as Anthem, BCBS, BCBSA, or The Blues, is a United States–based federation with 33 independent and locally operated BCBSA companies that provide health insurance to more than 115 million people in the U.S. as of 2022.
It was formed in 1982 from the merger of its two namesake organizations. Blue Cross was founded in 1929 and became the Blue Cross Association in 1960. Blue Shield emerged in 1939, and the Blue Shield Association was created in 1948. Its headquarters are at the Aon Center at 200 E. Randolph Street in Chicago, Illinois.
BCBSA claims to control access to the Blue Cross and Blue Shield trademarks and names across the United States and in more than 170 other countries, which it then licenses to the affiliated companies for specific, exclusive geographic service areas. It has affiliated plans in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and licensees offering plans in several foreign countries; it also participates in the nationwide health insurance program for employees of the United States federal government.
BCBSA manages communications between its members and the operating policies required to be a licensee of the trademarks. This permits each BCBSA company to offer nationwide insurance coverage through its BlueCard provider network and claims reimbursement program even though it operates only in its designated service area.
History
Blue Cross and Blue Shield developed separately.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Blue Cross Blue Shield Association” as federation of 36 separate United States health insurance organizations and companies. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as federation of 36 separate United States health insurance organizations and companies. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4929017. VIAF identifies the subject as 155513928. The Library of Congress control number is n82209092. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022, 1982, 1929 and 1960.
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This entry incorporates text from “Blue Cross Blue Shield Association” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.