Our Work Continues...
GHI was organized in 1937 by a group of prominent civic and medical leaders who wanted to make modern medical care more readily available at a time when the country was still suffering from the Great Depression and many families were going without the services of a physician. The group was led by Winslow Carlton, a philanthropist and social activist with an interest in cooperative housing and neighborhood social services.Initially formed under the sponsorship of the Bureau of Cooperative Medicine, the Group Health Association of New York had no capital, and its offices were in two storage rooms above the bureau. But the founders had an innovative idea: They believed that the principles of insurance could be applied to medical needs—that creating "health insurance" would enable families to predict their medical costs and make it possible to budget for these costs.
The tiny health cooperative, with a handful of subscribers and premiums totaling less than $2,000, quickly became a model for other, similar efforts in other parts of the state and the nation—establishing the pioneering role that GHI continued to play in the health insurance industry.
Over seven decades, GHI has grown to become a leading statewide not-for-profit health insurance corporation. We look back with pride on the work we have accomplished in the past—and with anticipation to the work that we, as EmblemHealth, will continue in the future.
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