UNDER DURESS

Health Insurer Scraps Widely Hated Plan to Cap Anesthesia Coverage

The plan for 2025 resurfaced after the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday in Manhattan.

A top health insurance provider has scrapped a controversial plan to limit anesthesia coverage for surgical patients. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield will no longer try to implement the much-ridiculed cap, which would have required patients to pay out-of-pocket for any anesthesia administered after their surgery went over an arbitrary time limit. Connecticut’s comptroller, Sean Scanlon, said Thursday in a statement, “After hearing from people across the state about this concerning policy, my office reached out to Anthem. I’m pleased to share this policy will no longer be going into effect here in Connecticut.” The plan was announced last month for customers in Connecticut, New York, and Missouri. The pending policy went viral on Wednesday, after the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was gunned down in Manhattan in a “targeted attack.” Anthem said in a statement Thursday that it had pulled the policy for all three states, citing “significant widespread misinformation” about it.