Coverage of the February 1st rally at Blue Shield headquarters in San Francisco by the local ABC station.
As KGO reported:
The decision by Blue Shield means four of California's health insurers have agreed to postpone their rate increases for 60 days. Blue Shield's rate hike is by far the largest.
Nurses, patients and consumer advocates converged on Blue Shield headquarters in San Francisco demanding a stop to the insurer's big rate hike. A small business owner and patient was among those who addressed the crowd. She says her family of three will have to go without insurance, rather than pay the higher premiums.
"The amount we are paying and we've been paying, we're thinking we just put that in a saving account and we save it when a condition arises. And we'll pay out of pocket and throw our chances to the wind. See what happens," says Kerry Abukhalaf, a mother of one child.
Last week, three of California's biggest insurers agreed to postpone their rate hikes 60 days. Pacific Care and Anthem agreed to postpone rate hikes between 2 and 9 percent. And Aetna postponed its increase of 20.7 percent. Blue Shield was the last holdout. The sudden reversal caught the protestors by surprise.
"It's a victory in a very large war," says Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association
