How it started
History
Health Net was established as the nonprofit Health Net of California in 1977 by Blue Cross. In 1992, a California order permitted the company to convert from a nonprofit to a for-profit company. Under the terms of the California Department of Corporations' conversion order, the California Wellness Foundation, the successor charity to its nonprofit status, received $300 million plus 80 percent of the equity of Health Net's parent holding company.
In August 1993, Health Net merged with Qualmed to form Health Systems International. In April 1997, Health Systems International merged with Foundation Health Corporation to form Foundation Health Systems. Also in 1997, Foundation Health Systems acquired PACC Health Plans and Physicians Health Services.
In November 2000, Foundation Health Systems changed its name to Health Net, Inc. when the company started trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol HNT.
In July 2009, UnitedHealth Group bought Health Net's northeastern licensed subsidiaries for $510 million, and its Medicare and Medicaid businesses for $60 million. In November 2009, Connecticut's attorney general office investigated a lost, unencrypted hard drive with customer data. Health Net offered two years of free credit protection from a company called Debix to affected customers.
In November 2010, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) suspended Health Net for marketing and enrolling new members for compliance issues. The sanctions were lifted in August 2011. In January 2012, the company agreed to sell its Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) business to CVS Caremark Corp. (CVS) for approximately $160 million in cash. Health Net continued to providing prescription drug plans as part of its Medicare Advantage plans.
From Wikipedia’s article on Health Net, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3