WellChoice, Incorporated is the parent company of Empire Blue Cross-Blue Shield of New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, created when Empire became a publicly traded

Stock market

A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...

 company in 2003. WellChoice is listed on the Fortune 500

Fortune 500

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...

 with revenues of over US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

5,000,000,000.

In late 2005 it was announced that Wellchoice would begin a merger with WellPoint, also a Fortune 500 company, in January 2006.