Blue Cross Blue Shield did billboard advertisement photographed at Chicago’s Wrigley Field with Ernie Banks, in which Fine Makeup Art & Associates did makeup. The advertisement was photographed by Mark Katzman and the billboard stood at corner of Clark and Addison, right across the street from the Ernie Banks statue.

The BCBSA is a federation of 36 separate United States health insurance organizations and companies, providing health insurance to more than 106  million Americans. Blue Cross was founded in 1929, and became the Blue Cross Association in 1960, while Blue Shield emerged in 1939 and the Blue Shield Association was created in 1948. The two organizations merged in 1982.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield developed separately, with Blue Cross plans providing coverage for hospital services and Blue Shield covering physicians’ services.

Blue Cross is a name used by an association of health insurance plans throughout the United States. Its predecessor was developed by Justin Ford Kimball in 1929, while he was vice president of Baylor University‘s health care facilities in Dallas, Texas.  The first plan guaranteed teachers 21 days of hospital care for $6 a year, was later extended to other employee groups in Dallas, and then nationally. The American Hospital Association (AHA) adopted the Blue Cross symbol in 1939 as the emblem for plans meeting certain standards. In 1960, the AHA commission was superseded by the Blue Cross Association. Blue Cross severed its ties with the AHA in 1972.

Blue Shield was developed by employers in lumber and mining camps of the Pacific Northwest to provide medical care by paying monthly fees to medical service bureaus composed of groups of physicians. In 1939, the first official Blue Shield plan was founded in California. In 1948, the symbol was informally adopted by nine plans called the Associated Medical Care Plan, and was later renamed the National Association of Blue Shield Plans.

 

 

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Blue Cross Blue Shield Billboard @ Wrigley Field

On set for a photo shoot with Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs, the model for a new billboard for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois.