We Are in Trouble

[Mac1958]

A few fun facts about an incredibly expensive, wasteful and unnecessary element of our health care system that will continue to be ignored and avoided by the Democrats, due to their dependence on the attorney's lobby - defensive medicine & Tort Reform...

1. Physicians spend approximately $32 billion a year in malpractice premiums.

2. 81% of hospital residents say they view every patient as a potential lawsuit.

3. 2005 estimate of the costs of "defensive medicine" (the over-use of testing to avoid lawsuits): Between $100 billion and $178 billion.

4. 2005 estimate of other costs of "defensive medicine", such as administration and extra compensation: $29.4 billion.

5. 2005 estimate of the average amount that each American family pays per year to cover the costs of "defensive medicine": $1,700 to $2,000.

6. 2005 estimate of excessive litigation & waste in the nation's current tort system for a family of four: $9,827.

This "health care bill" is nothing more than a political document, written by professional politicians interested in giving more and more power to the federal bureaucracy.

This goes far beyond my career. I have two beautiful children, 11 & 14, and I have a pretty good idea of what's in store for them (and their children one day) if this bill or something like it passes. I fear for them.

 

[Winter_123]

That exchange is the stick that breaks our backs and drastically reduces our health insurance income.

Along with guaranteed issue.

What is missing in the national debate so far is the question of doctor participation in the public option. Yes, you can force some/most into participating in the public option by requiring them to participate if they participate in medicare and other cheap tricks like that. However, we are basically headed toward a multi-tier system where the public option is more like the national health service but other options will be more expensive but more benefit-rich and better access and the docs will be better compensated from those plans as well even though they are more expensive. This could also take the form of carriers offering supplements to beef up some of the plain-jane options.

The el-cheapo pinto health care will just be selected off the exchange by people looking at a couple basic pieces of information. However, the more benefit rich/more costly plans will not just be bought, they will need to be sold. Therein lies the area where the carriers will have a need for agents, although the commission will be considerably less as noted.

Take AARP/UHC for example. They do their supp business mostly on TV. However, they are willing to also offer agents a pittance. And why not, when an agent makes a sale it is basically "found money" for them which they would not have otherwise had and they dont put anything into the agents who are not captive. And if you had five other carriers on an exchange or advertising on TV the way AARP does, then that would take their competitive media advantage away from them and make that measely agent sale even more valuable to them. The more the playing field is leveled, the more carriers will have to seek ways to distinquish themselves. In some instances this might involve commissions to agents to do what a listing on an exchange or a TV cannot. I dont know yet. Neither do the carriers because it will ultimately be data-driven. We can agree that the carrier-whores would bypass agents in a flash the minute it became cost-effective but what they want ideologically and what their data tells them are two different things so far.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Again, a comp cut is a double-edged sword. Obviously reduced commissions however far less competition.

You take those 20% advances away from agents and my best guess is at least 70% bail.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

If somehow the "exchange" rates are identical to major carrier rates and coverages are similar...AND folks like UHC and Aetna throw in some discount dental and vision coverage...it might not be so bad.

But the $64,000 question is...what will the exchange rates be? And if the major carriers can't deny anybody, what happens if their preferred business goes to the exchange and they are suck with GI business?

 

[JustinUpright]

The car business is owned by the government as well I guess if we have jobs at all after all this we will be government employees.

Seems like the folks selling Med Supp's do OK.

How is the car business looking to you?

 

[somarco]

The car business is owned by the government as well I guess if we have jobs at all after all this we will be government employees.

I understand we will be selling smaller policies built by Italians and Chinese.

 

[jsd1239]

The car business is owned by the government as well I guess if we have jobs at all after all this we will be government employees.

Speaking of the auto industry!

I was talking to an hourly GM retiree today, he was telling me that at retiree meeting he went to last week, he heard that GM management and their government overseers are all for GI. If it comes to be they will dump all their retirees under 65 on this plan and it will save them in the millions. So I'm sure they are lobbying for this plan. He claims that GM and Chrysler already raised the costs on their med supplements to the retirees on medicare to $76 a month with more increases to follow. He didn't say how much they were paying before. Ford can't do it because they didn't go into bankruptcy. So much for their contract the bankruptcy judge made the ruling.
GM dumped their salary retiree's major med last year.

 

[somarco]

Even if GM drops the group plan they pay a fine (tax). If they keep the rich benefit plan the workers pay taxes on the benefits.

Either way the union loses. Good thing they voted for Obamaman.

GM can change benefits on the salaried even without a bankruptcy. Union hourly employees are covered (wages and benefits) under a CBO. The only way to change wages or benefits is to renegotiate and get union ratification. They don't need a BK for that to happen.