From an email exchange with our aviation insurance broker, regarding why he uses an agent for his own small business’s health insurance plan, rather than going direct to an insurer:
I would say exposure to more markets (United Health is probably going to be more cost effective than Blue Cross) as well as someone to turn to when you have questions about the different options. I have my health insurance brokers license and the intricate differences between plan offerings still confuse me sometimes.
What hope is there for the rest of us?
It’s a challenge, that’s for chore. I’m an above-average reader of material written at a high Flesch-Kincaid grade level and (at least at some time in the distant past) standardized tests indicated that I had a “Gifted or Very Advanced” IQ, and it took me three days to navigate the various plan options I had to decide between. I’m still not sure I made the right choice. Then you talk to people on the phone who seem to know even less about the plans than you do. It’s kind of like buying a used EV from Sam’s Hot Car Lot Down By the Railroad Tracks…or the “factory-authorized” dealer.
What we currently call “insurance” really isn’t “insurance” as the word has been used for most of it’s history, a limited private financial hedge against disaster.
What we call “health insurance” is better understood as “health cartel alliance”. You choose which public or private corporation you will go through to pay medical costs. Going outside the cartel system is financially ruinous. Nearly all medical providers insist you participate in the cartel system or suffer great financial penalty in receiving medical care, if you can even receive it at all. The first thing any medical provider wants to know is your cartel affilliation, not what is wrong with your health. The US has a medical system that encourages high spending, not health.
It all makes more sense when you say “medical cartel”, rather than “health insurance”. Do not confuse “medicine” with “health”. Medical care often harms your health. People fear a high medical bill more than the underlying disease. Also notice thst the definition of “medicine” keeps on expanding to include such “diseases” as poverty, homelessness, and the neo-Marxian concept of “systemic racism”.
We live in an age of where our language is corrupted to sell you a pig’s ear as a silk purse. It is hard to point out that the emperor has no clothes when trillions of dollars a year is spent for those clothes.
@Mememe
Your [correct] notion is not new, already in Moon is a harsh mistress, by Robert Heinlen 1966, one of the character ridicules the abuse of the word insurance in regards to health insurance.
“When they stopped, I read it back: “Free hospitals–aren’t any in Luna. Medical insurance–we have that but apparently not what you mean by it. If a person wants insurance, he goes to a bookie and works b-Out a bet. You can hedge anything, for a price. I don’t hedge my health, I’m healthy. Or was till I came here.”
Quote is from https://ia801600.us.archive.org/12/items/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress_201701/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress.pdf , page 137
Viking,
I am saving up to buy that cannon. For those who do not get the reference, you will have to read the great 20th century novel for yourself.
You can’t even get a straight price when buying a car, why would this be any different? It’s the same story for all of corporate America. Gaining an advantage over the consumer or business customer through fine print and legal ease that no one can possibly understand, let alone afford to exercise in a court. At least with the ACA, you can be confident of some level of basic care and the catastrophic pitfalls such as lifetime limits, pre-existing conditions are gone for good. What’s left is wrangling co-pays and deductibles. I’d rather have some uncertainty in the up front costs than the catastrophic back end risks.
Wanted to add that if a broker can’t give you a clear recommendation, that’s probably a good sign that plans are all competitive and more similar than not. Seems like a positive thing overall.
None
Scott Adams (of Dilbert) coined the term “confusopoly” for business like US health insurance. Essentially, make the product so confusing that comparison shopping is nearly impossible. Cell phone service used to be the premier example, but that’s pretty straightforward now.
Why has corporate America not risen up to demand a public system? Wrangling insurance or even administration of self-insurance is a pure drag on corporate management. A system covering everybody would level the field, not to mention the cost is not sustainable. ACA only addressed who pays, not what they pay.
Why would Corporate America not want a level playing field? The current system is awesome for a big company. The federal government makes it illegal for small employers (50+) not to purchase health insurance. The small employer will surely pay more than the big employer, since the small employer can’t afford a team of health insurance optimization specialists. Regulation and complexity are wonderful for the Fortune 500.
Doesn’t insurance cover things the buyer couldn’t otherwise afford?
If everyone has health insurance, doesn’t that mean health care is too expensive for all of us?
Sam: And American-built housing is also too expensive for most Americans, as noted in https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/08/03/americans-cant-afford-to-live-in-america-heartland-edition/