Lynn Blais has spent much of the year stressed and anxious about her Aunt Peggy’s declining health.
But it was rage that Blais felt when she read an Oct. 2 letter from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, announcing that its subsidized insurance coverage for her 85-year-old aunt was ending Jan. 1. A copy of the letter was shared with Rhode Island Current.
“It just sent me right over the edge,” said Blais, a nurse at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital and president of the United Nurses & Allied Professionals. “She’s relying on health care the most she ever has in her entire life. To get blindsided with this notice, it’s just so inappropriate.”
Peggy — Blais asked not to print her aunt’s full name out of respect for her privacy — is among 275 Rhode Island seniors who will lose access to a discounted Medicare Advantage plan available to former company workers and their families at the end of the year, Rich Salit, a Blue Cross spokesperson, confirmed in an email on Thursday. The end of coverage was first reported by WPRI-TV 12 on Wednesday.
She’s relying on health care the most she ever has in her entire life. To get blindsided with this notice, it’s just so inappropriate.
Salit cited “skyrocketing medical and prescription drug costs” and multimillion dollar operating losses as the impetus for the coverage ending, along with other cost-cutting measures. Health insurers nationwide, including Blue Cross, have faced major blows to their balance sheets and operating margins. The pressure is expected to intensify as health care costs swell and federal tax subsidies through the Affordable Care Act expire at the end of the year.
Other cost-cutting measures Blue Cross has planned include reducing spending on vendors and “working to proactively support members with complex needs to avoid more costly interventions,” Salit said.
Blue Cross ended 2024 $115 million in the red, alongside a $113 million underwriting loss, prompting layoffs for 30 employees, or 3% of its staff, according to news reports. Its financial standing improved slightly as of June 2025, down to a $3.7 million loss, according to filings with the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation.
Ending the subsidized Medicare Advantage group plan for former company retirees and their spouses will save the company $125,000 a year, while eliminating a $6 million liability from its balance sheet, Salit said.
The discounted plan was only available to former Blue Cross employees hired before 1992 who met age and years-of-service criteria, and their spouses, and who retired before April 1, 2013.
Blais’ aunt and her aunt’s late husband, Elia, have relied on the discounted insurance plan for over a decade, Blais said. Elia worked as chief legal counsel for the health insurer for a decade, leaving in the early 1990s to take a job with the state of Rhode Island. Elia died in April. But Peggy still uses the coverage to pay for physician visits to the nursing home and for medication to manage her Parkinson’s symptoms, Blais said.
Her aunt’s short-term memory and general health worsened considerably over the last year after she fell and broke her hip in January. She moved into a nursing home a few months later. Blais, who now serves as power of attorney for her aunt, had no intention of telling her aunt about the loss of coverage through Blue Cross.
“I wouldn’t want to stress her out,” Blais said. “It’s just not worth putting her through that.”
Blais is shouldering the stress alone as she considers alternatives.
Affected plan participants can choose another Medicare Advantage plan through Blue Cross, or other insurers, during the annual enrollment period that began Tuesday, and runs through Dec. 7. Salit said Blue Cross’ alternative plans for Medicare-eligible patients offer monthly premiums “as low as $0 to $35.”
But Blais was bracing for pricier premiums, given the nationwide trend in health insurance costs and her aunt’s age and existing health conditions.
“It’s not like I am insuring some 65-year-old, newly retired person,” Blais said.
Blue Cross offered a specialist and phone number in its letter to assist retirees and their spouses with preparing for the end of subsidized insurance coverage. But Blais said she has not called the number.
“That would not have been a fun conversation,” Blais said. “I am still too angry.”
Her indignation was not only for her aunt, but for other seniors set to lose insurance coverage who might not have someone to rely on for making health care decisions.
“Think of all those people who don’t have anybody who can stick up for them or help them in this,” Blais added.
Blais also said she filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha denounced health insurers for hiking costs to consumers, urging the Rhode Island Office of the Health Insurer to reject any requested rate increases for commercial insurance plans. Timothy Rondeau, a spokesperson for Neronha’s office, declined to comment Thursday when asked about the end of Blue Cross’ subsidized Medicare Advantage plan.
The approved 2026 commercial premiums, which do not cover Medicare Advantage plans, mark the largest increases in over a decade, though they are less than what insurers, including Blue Cross, requested. Medicare Advantage plans are regulated primarily through the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Rhode Island’s health insurance commissioner also licenses the companies that sell Medicare Advantage plans and considers their overall financial health in reviews of other commercial insurance premiums.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
