Kimball, Justin Ford

Justin Ford Kimball (1872–1956) was an educator and healthcare insurance pioneer and innovator, credited with founding the first health insurance plan in the nation, which would ultimately become Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Kimball was born on a farm near Huntsville, Texas, in 1872. In 1890, he earned an undergraduate degree from Mount Lebanon College in Louisiana, and in 1899, he received a master's degree from Baylor University. Kimball undertook postgraduate work at the University of Chicago and attended law school at the University of Michigan. He subsequently worked as a teacher, principal, and superintendent in schools in Louisiana and Texas. Beginning in 1902, he practiced law but returned to educational leadership in 1905.

Kimball proved to be an exceptional administrator, and in 1914, he became Superintendent of Public Schools in Dallas, Texas. He held that position until 1924, when ill health forced him to resign. After his resignation, Kimball remained active as a lecturer and speaker, eventually joining the faculty of Southern Methodist University in 1925 as a professor of education. In 1929, he became vice president of Baylor University, in charge of the Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry, School of Nursing, and the University Hospital in Dallas to provide oversight of the university's medical education and “to shore up the shaky finances” of Baylor University Hospital.

Kimball found that a large share of Baylor University Hospital's unpaid bills were from Dallas schoolteachers. In 1929, almost concurrently with the great stock market crash that sparked the Great Depression, he developed a not-for-profit insurance plan whereby Dallas schoolteachers could prepay, at 50 cents a month, or $6.00 a year, for 21 days of inpatient care in a semiprivate room at Baylor Hospital. The plan would take effect after a patient's first week in the hospital, with payments being $5.00 a day. On its first day of subscription, 1,356 teachers signed up for the plan, and by December 1929, 75% of Dallas teachers were enrolled in the plan. Within 5 years, the “Baylor Plan” provided health insurance coverage for some 408 diverse employee groups, totaling 23,000 members, eventually covering 3 million people within a decade. By 1933, the American Hospital Association (AHA) started regulating and approving similar prepayment plans, and the Blue Cross symbol, a blue Geneva cross known as a universal symbol of healthcare, came into use the following year. During 1944, the Baylor Plan merged into what would become one of the nation's Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans.

In 1939, Kimball, who was 67 year old, retired from Baylor University, but he remained active as a lecturer. He served on the Dallas civil service commission and from 1949 to 1952 was a member of the Texas State Board of Education. He died at his Dallas home in 1956.

After his death, the American Hospital Association (AHA) established the Justin Ford Kimball Innovators Award in his honor. The award recognizes individuals who make innovative contributions in bringing together healthcare delivery and financing.