JANUARY 29, 2016, 4:20 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016, 5:10 PM
BY MARY JO LAYTON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The state’s largest insurer has sued Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck and The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood to halt an ad campaign the hospitals launched in protest of a new tiered health plan they say makes them look inferior.
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey calls the advertising against its Omnia plan a “smear campaign” — one that goes so far as to say the insurer doesn’t like babies. The campaign is motivated “solely by a desire to damage Horizon financially as well as its business reputation,” the lawsuit filed this week noted.
Bruce Rosen, an attorney representing Valley and Holy Name, defended the ads on Friday. “This is a blatant attempt by Horizon to distract attention away from the potentially disastrous impact that the Omnia plan is going to have on the two hospitals, their patients and New Jersey’s health care system,” he said.
They’ll sue, but our own Village Council refuses to even discuss challenging Valley’s not-for-profit status and puts a Valley supporter in charge of representing the Village Council on their lawsuit