15 Years After Tobacco Settlement

Blue Cross just hosted an event to observe the 15-year anniversary of the settlement with the tobacco industry.

Chap Mills of the Blue Cross legal department first gave some initial history on Blue Cross’s involvement and then introduced Minnesota’s former Attorney General, Skip Humphrey.

Mr. Humphrey frequently emphasized that the lawsuit against the tobacco industry was a public-private partnership and the state would not have been able to proceed without the help of its partners, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota and the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi.  The lawsuit was based on the fact that the tobacco industry had deceived consumers and that resulted in higher health care costs for Blue Cross and the state of Minnesota.

tobacco_ann_bc_img_9855_smHe mentioned that the California Attorney General had requested something like seventeen million dollars from his state legislature to initiate a lawsuit against the tobacco industry and was refused. To illustrate the magnitude of the Minnesota effort, the trial took 15 weeks and the settlement took place on the last day of the trial. The discovery  involved about 30 million pages of documentation.  It is being used by other states, private litigants, and foreign countries.

Blue Cross of Minnesota created a foundation that uses its portion for improving community conditions and for improving the health of Minnesotans.  Janelle Waldock, director of the Center for Prevention, talked about the impact of the lawsuit on the state and the progress in reducing smoking since then.

Attorney General Humphrey said that there was a vision of having the state form a foundation and then using the resources for research and development.  Unfortunately the state didn’t dedicate the tobacco funds and the loans taken out against the funds by the 2011 legislature means that the state’s future allocations will not be available now for a long, long time.

Skip Humphrey commended Blue Cross for the courage its leadership had in agreeing to participate in the lawsuit.  He told the employees they had much for which they should be proud.  The outcome of that settlement not only impacted Minnesota and the other states, it had a world-wide influence.

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