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I agree with you on three matters:
- Whether the market is free or regulated you will have honest and dishonest people.
- They should consult the "good guys," when making new regulations.
- The new regulations are driving people out of the business.
As for the rest, you have some misguided ideas about the turnabout of the new regulations as well as some great conspiracy theories I'd like to address.
- If you say that neither the good guys or the bad guys will jump through the hoops of regulations then are you saying we are all a bunch of law breakers that will not abide to the rules? I highly disagree with you that the good guys will not jump through the hoops. The good guys will do EXACTLY that and follow the law, because the laws were made to protect the consumer. When the bad guys get weeded out of the business, the good guys will remain because they have obeyed the law. The bad guys will get reported and will loose their license, thus leave the law abiding ones behind.
- If you believe that the regulations are bringing in more hack, then why is it that agents are leaving the MA market in troves? Why would any hack want to get into an industry that requires so much regulations that even veterans are leaving? Hacks want the path of least resistance, the easiest form of money with the lowest risk. The risk now, with CMS secret shoppers, and Humana secret shoppers, are so high that an agent can easily loose their license and face huge fines for not following the law. Ever carrier, from Humana down to the little unknown ones, are loosing agents by the troves in the MA world. Quacks are not getting into the MA business, and everyone (honest and dishonest alike) sees the writing on the wall and is bailing from the industry. Like rats on the Titanic, people are jumping ship.
- The new regulations came from surveys of many actual agents as well as MA companies. You will note that most of the MA companies (except for Humana) are NOT on board with the new regulations and have vehemently objected to some of the new regulations both last year and this year. My Local Coventry office started a petition for their agents to sign to appeal some of CMS's ruling. My CIGNA rep was bitching night and day about the new SOA forms and how stupid she thought they were and that her company has had numerous meetings on how much they objected the idea. The regulations came in response to seniors as well as to agents. The churn rate in MA was higher than any other insurance, primarily from agents wishing to gain another first year commission.
- You believe the MA companies are making more now than they were several years ago? On the contrary, the commission structure now is much more lucrative than it's ever been. The difference is that they have spread the commission out over a 5 year period and increased it substantially. This was an effort to prevent agents from churning their own business to a difference carrier in order to receive another first year commission. The structure now rewards long term commitment and reduces cost to the government as well as the MA company. The commission was increased to enticed agents to do so.
- I'm sure you've heard the old saying that the few bad ones make things difficult for all the good ones. Nothing could have been more true in the MA business. I completely agree with you that there were many quacks and misguided souls in the MA business before. My argument is that many of them have left the MA business because it is no longer the "easy money" it once was. The determent to the business is that many good ones have also left because it is no longer the easy money it once was. MA use to be such an easy money maker, it was unreal. However, because it was so easy we had a lot of shady people doing things that were not always good for the client. The money was so good, and the process so easy, it attracted lots of crooks looking for an easy paycheck. The overcoming of adversity makes the process worth having. Whenever anything is too easy, it attracts those that are not so honest. That is when we must either police ourselves or we can expect others (government) to do it for us. We, agents in the MA business as a whole, failed miserably to police ourselves and I am just as guilty as the next guy for not policing each other. I too got caught up in the easy money and was less concerned about what others were doing and more concerned about what I was doing. There came a point where I had to spend more time explaining that many of the things the seniors were being told were not true and that they had been deceived. There came a point where I was spending most of the appointment explaining a plan they already had because the client did not understand what they had signed and asked if I would explain it to them. I made no money for these appointments because the client already had the plan but had no idea what they had. I knew change was coming, I think we all did. The seniors needed to be protected and that meant we either had to look after ourselves or Uncle Sam would have to step in. I feared it was too late to change the system amongst ourselves, and I was right. There was no way to weed out the bad ones without taking many of the good ones with them. I had no idea how bad the legislations would become, but I too left the business because I found something more fitting for me.
So enough of my Novel.
I will sum it up with this: We MUST police ourselves in all ventures. Like children on the playground, when we can not play nicely amongst ourselves; our parents will take away our freedom to play as we choose and tell us how to play.
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