"The Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota incident was, for me, the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Before this sentence gets edited out, I add that the Blues (with their much-talked-about reward junket for top salespeople to the Grand Cayman Islands) certainly are not at the level of Citibank or AIG as far as mismanagement is concerned. I don’t see a Bernie Madoff in the bunch, either; and BCBSND’s management did turn things around as fast as a magician can pull a quarter out of your ear.
But the poor judgment they had shown earlier made me throw up my hands. I thought North Dakota was immune from these kinds of shenanigans.
Before the BCBSND story broke, all my bad news about the economic crisis was on the national or regional levels. Some of what’s happening in the outer circles of our state, however, is beginning to “trickle down” into our area. But so far, we are holding our own."
Get the Story:DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: Just grit your teeth and bear it (The Grand Forks Herald 3/7)
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