Manika Turnbull

Vice President, Community Health and Economic Impact Officer

It only takes one person to make a difference. We have 23,000. 

These are employees who come to work every day with one purpose in mind — “to stand with our members in sickness and in health.”

While our purpose may sound like a marriage vow, we’re good with that because it fits who we are as a more than 80-year-old company that began with the commitment to provide health coverage within the reach of everyone who earns a paycheck. Now, our commitment is to invest in ways that help make health care more affordable and to help members be at their best.

As a company, we take a broad approach to making a positive impact for our members and the communities where they live, work and play. We’re part of these communities, too.

If you volunteer at a school, a food pantry or another community organization, some of our employees in their blue shirts are likely to be working by your side.

Our commitment is bigger than providing financial support to nonprofits and logging service hours, because health insurance and health care are unaffordable for many households.

We want to get at the real causes of these costs. That's why last year we launched Affordability Cures, a major multiyear investment in addressing the high cost of health care. One way this effort is confronting this issue is by improving collaborative care. For instance, we already rolled out our new Wellbeing Management program to 6 million members to ensure they all receive whole-person health care.

However, many things outside the scope of health care — such as lack of access to food, housing and transportation — play a big role in a person’s ability to attain their best health. They also add to medical costs that place a financial burden on households and businesses.

As a result, we’re focused on tackling those social determinants of health. That means we’re continuing to build our network of community partners to bridge these gaps, so we can provide peace of mind and empower whole-person health. For example: 

• We’re refocusing our long-standing support of food sources through a collaboration with Feeding America to increase consumption of healthy foods among people who are food insecure;
• We’re working with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s Blue Cross Blue Shield Institute^SM to increase access to healthy food for people who live in food deserts;
• Our Care Vans, a public-private partnership, are immunizing tens of thousands of children and provide other health services to adults and children each year; and
• We’re energizing our people and are well on our way to reaching 1 million service hours by 2021.

We also lead with our values in every part of our business, setting the standard as a responsible employer, business leader and local resident. We celebrate and foster diversity and inclusion, for example, because our diverse workforce makes us stronger and helps us meet the needs of our members and communities. We promote a healthy environment and maintain the strongest possible ethics and compliance.

We’ll share stories about these efforts here as we put our purpose into action.