On the Horizon: Under 65 Med Supplments?

[HealthGuy]

Forum Veterans: Tell me why guaranteed issue for under 65 will be any different in 2014 and beyond than the turning 65 guarantee issue medicare supplement market has been for years. Why won't we still have something to sell to the under 65 market as many here on this forum have made a living selling to seniors in the Medicare supplement market for years? Why will selling to the under 65 folks be any different? When all is said and done the exchange plans probably won't cover everything, will they - thus the need for a supplement? Maybe the sky is not falling. Tell me why I am right and tell me why I am wrong. What am I missing here? People have made good money for years selling med sups to 65 and older. Why not 65 and younger? I hear nothing of the gov't hiring 16,000 new navigators to sign people up, with or without a subsidy...We are already here. Why can't licensed agents be the ones to sign up 30 million new people, and make a living doing it? Why not, why not?

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

You need to find something else to sell, if it ends up being a gravy train with selling supps to under 65, fantastic....but don't be stuck with your pants down.

Plus many seniors believe they need a supp to OM, I doubt anyone under 65 will feel the same, actually they will feel a need for a supp...just that it should be free!

 

[Winter_123]

One of the problems with the "under 65 supp" market in theory, is that, rather than get a basic obamacare plan and then buy some type of supplemental plan to go with it, consumers will be able to just buy a higher level plan from the same carrier. You dont have that with medicare. Medicare offers what medicare offers. You want more, you go outside of medicare to a private carrier. However, if under age 65 plans are offered by private carriers they most likely will just stack up a couple different options on the exchange and if you want more than the basic, then choose the next plan up from that and so on which will be exchange/obamacare/eligible as well.

In theory all sorts of things can be offered on and off the exchange. Getting customers to find a need to get past the exchange and come to you is another matter. Some folks here are all set because they conclude that there will always be a need and so on and so forth. Fine. With guaranteed issue, the need is less and, as is true in my state, the carriers are always gunning to find a way to go around agents to the point where independent agents are mostly gone. You want a plan, just go to the website/exchange.

We have been around on this enough to know that many agents here all set because they have reasons why this will not happen. Fine again. Let me then just say that it is something to watch out for.

Note again that I am not saying that there will not be business off of the exchange. I am however saying the exchange will change the business picture in a major way. If you find a way around it, more power to you. If the number of clients you have already is marginal though, I would worry about it bigtime.

Of course it is not just the exchange, it is also and perhaps moreso, the carriers. The more their margins are squeezed, the more they want to go around you too. Much like AARP med supp sales, they may allow agent sales but they are out there gunning everyday to go around you and keep the pittance they give you right at the level where if you make a sale that is a plus for them, but if you don't it isn't going to change their business picture much.

Forum Veterans: Tell me why guaranteed issue for under 65 will be any different in 2014 and beyond than the turning 65 guarantee issue medicare supplement market has been for years. Why won't we still have something to sell to the under 65 market as many here on this forum have made a living selling to seniors in the Medicare supplement market for years? Why will selling to the under 65 folks be any different? When all is said and done the exchange plans probably won't cover everything, will they - thus the need for a supplement? Maybe the sky is not falling. Tell me why I am right and tell me why I am wrong. What am I missing here? People have made good money for years selling med sups to 65 and older. Why not 65 and younger? I hear nothing of the gov't hiring 16,000 new navigators to sign people up, with or without a subsidy...We are already here. Why can't licensed agents be the ones to sign up 30 million new people, and make a living doing it? Why not, why not?

 

[HealthGuy]

Good analysis boys, keep it coming. If nationally the exchange is like NY or MA, sure I think we are done, but will those micromarkets really play out on a national scale..I don't know. I will have a contingency plan in place, but damn, this 30 plus million people is going to be a huge market and the carriers or the government wont be able to administrate it by themselves and I don't necessarily think a buy up is going to be an option. The gov't is going to scale back the exchange plan options, I believe that, we can't pay for all of the 100% plans that are conceived to be in it...the economy will come to a grinding halt first if we have to pay for it. I think ultimately there are going to be shitty plans in the exhange and supplements to cover the rest. When hasn't the gov't f@#ked things up and made it more complicated? That is where we may be able to come in and clean up selling the supplements...Who knows, maybe I am delusional after posting on here over 1,000 times now.

 

[Winter_123]

The gov't is going to scale back the exchange plan options, I believe that, we can't pay for all of the 100% plans that are conceived to be in it...the economy will come to a grinding halt first if we have to pay for it.

It wont cost the government any more. They will offer a basic tax credit or a basic subsidy for eligible plans that meet obamacare basics and then you go from there with what you can afford. I was just saying that if, for example, you had 200 a month to apply to a supp you could just buy a higher level plan and skip the supp. It doesnt cost the government any more. Same way that the government isnt going to give you anymore past the basic if you decide to get a supp.

 

[ksigmtsu]

Just as devils advocate here, wouldn't we have been better off if Medicare for all passed, in comparison to the huge "MA for all" variation with exchanges designed to cut agents completely out?

It should be readily apparent to most intelligent people that this bill was designed by the carriers to maximize their profit potential. If the carrier makes a 1% profit of the entire nation its a lot more money than 5% profit of what they had before, and they get to cut out 20% of agent overhead on a ton of sales by legally requiring purchase rather than letting agents try to capture that market.

The people that got screwed were the citizens in general and the agents. The insurance companies made out like bandits.

 

[somarco]

The insurance companies made out like bandits.

I don't see it that way. If it were so, why would so many carriers bail (as we have seen already with more to follow) and why are they fighting the MLR (among other things)?

Carriers shot themselves in the foot, just like the docs that posed with Obummer in support of Obamacrap.

 

[HealthGuy]

ksigmtsu: Devil's advocate again with you my friend - how specifically are we cut out yet come 2014 exchange time? How, in detail, have we been screwed already? Where is the proof? I'm not saying you are wrong, and commissions will drop, but who says agents are completely out of the picture?

 

[somarco]

agents are completely out of the picture?

I believe they are excluded from participating in the MA exchange, but can participate in the one in CO.

 

[ksigmtsu]

ksigmtsu: Devil's advocate again with you my friend - how specifically are we cut out yet come 2014 exchange time? How, in detail, have we been screwed already? Where is the proof? I'm not saying you are wrong, and commissions will drop, but who says agents are completely out of the picture?

The issue is going to be that our pay per client is going to be cut 30-50%, and we'd be better off now with a MA style pay schedule of 200 dollars per year per member.

I'm sort of hoping that we see that sort of setup, it would be better than 5-10% of what is actually paid other than the government subsidy, which is nearly guaranteed to not be commissioned even though the insurance company will receive the full value.

There will be people left standing, but a lot of people are going to be looking for something else to sell because they're not capable of producing the volume necessary to profit at the new pay schedule.
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I don't see it that way. If it were so, why would so many carriers bail (as we have seen already with more to follow) and why are they fighting the MLR (among other things)?

Carriers shot themselves in the foot, just like the docs that posed with Obummer in support of Obamacrap.

It caused a ogolopy of government supported companies to already start to form. I think you'll see assurant, world, coventry, celtic, etc fall completely off the map, and UHO, BX, Humana, and Cigna, Kaizer, etc will thrive.