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What do we think is more likely: A health insurance company saw the backlash to an obviously failed policy and decided, out of the goodness of their heart, to reverse it? Or it got caught up in the news, people realized Really Don’t like insurance companies and have canceled the policy? We’ll never know! What we can be sure of is that for some reason on Thursday, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield decided to be a little less nasty and announced that it will not be introducing a policy with limited anesthesia coverage.

According to CBS News, the original policy statement said Anthem would only pay for anesthesia “for the amount of time a procedure or operation is estimated to take based on physician time-of-work values ​​from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service.” If your procedure took longer than Anthem expected, Anthem generally would not cover the anesthesia. The policy would have taken effect next year in Connecticut, New York and Missouri.

Apparently this caused an uproar among anesthesiologists, politicians and people who don’t want to pay for their own anesthesia just because their life-saving surgery took a little too long. The American Society of Anesthesiologists sounded the alarm back in November, releasing a statement condemning Anthem.

“This is just the latest in a long line of appalling behavior by commercial health insurers seeking to increase their profits at the expense of patients and physicians who provide primary care,” said anesthesiologist Donald E. Arnold. “It’s a cynical money grab by Anthem.”

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy wrote that the policy was “appalling.” New York Governor Kathy Hochul quoted Pop Crave (!) on Twitter and called the whole thing “outrageous.”

After everyone was rightfully angry at the company, Anthem released a statement saying they were no longer enforcing the policy.

“Based on the feedback received and the misinterpretation of our policy change, it is apparent that our communication regarding this policy was not clear, and we have therefore decided not to move forward with this policy change,” the company said.

I think that’s corporate talk because, ‘Damn, you caught us in our cowardly attempt to make money off your hardships.’ Our mistake.”