Love the title:

Vampire Blue Cross/Blue Shield

Dear Editor:

Awhile back I wrote, trying to figure out how my adopted parasite had managed to have a better-than-(Wall-Street)-expected first quarter:

I have tried, and failed, to understand or find out what "disciplined pricing and operating improvements in senior and local group businesses and more favorable prior-period claims development" means. I'm especially curious about that "more favorable prior-period claims development" part. Sounds suspiciously like not paying old claims, to me. But you know how I am...

Dearie me, not suspicious enough, perhaps. Could this be part of what it means?

Last week Wellpoint (the parent company of my own adopted parasite, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield) posted a first quarter net income which had gone down from the previous quarter, but not so much of a decline as Wall Street had expected.

WellPoint Inc.'s (WLP) first-quarter net income fell 1.3% Wednesday on sharply higher investment losses and amid continued enrollment declines, but the health insurer's strong operating performance offers further encouragement for the pressured industry.

I'm so relieved!

N.Y. AG Prescribes Subpoenas to UnitedHealth Group, Others

The nation's largest health care insurer, four of its subsidiaries and a number of other large insurers are being served subpoenas -- 16 in all -- in a suit to be brought by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that charges the companies used "rigged data to manipulate the reimbursement rate to their customers who filed claims."

At the center of the scheme, according to the attorney general, is Ingenix, Inc., "the nation's largest provider of health care billing information, which serves as a conduit for rigged data to the largest insurers in the country."