A Broker's Lament: We Brought This On Ourselves - The Health Care Blog

By JOHN SINIBALDI

A huge segment of the American population is simply far too strapped to ever afford the premiums and costs associated with health insurance/health care as it is structured today.

It isn't the employees of government (local, county, state or federal) who will demand immediate change. It isn't the employees of institutional companies (the Motorolas, GEs, Microsofts of the country) who will demand change. It isn't those on Medicare or Medicaid or the VA who will demand change. It isn't the wealthy. It isn't the poor. And, it isn't the vast majority of health insurance agents who work with large group clients (because, while that market is becoming ever more difficult and the work more taxing, they're still selling SOMETHING to these bigger businesses and government entities).

Why don't these people see what I'm seeing? Simply because, while they are feeling the effects of the rise in health care/health insurance costs and the downturn in the economy, most of these businesses and their employees and dependents (and the affluent) have yet to have a clue about how expensive things really are (or in the case of the rich, they can still afford their out-of-pocket expenses). The agents who market to large employers are still making lots of money (I know, I rub elbows with them at my local Health Underwriters meetings once a month).

That leaves individuals and small businesses and the agents who work primarily in those markets - the very folks most beleaguered by the current situation. While the employee of a regional electric utility is complaining about monthly payroll deductions for his family that now exceed $500 or more on a $60,000 annual salary, the longtime employee of a local small electrician is looking at monthly payroll deductions for his family of $1,500 on a $35,000 annual salary. His apprentice is younger, and so is "fortunate" to have monthly deductions for his family of only $900 on a $20,000 annual salary. The electrician's helper making $9/hr can't afford even his half of the premium for just himself.

Individuals on personal health insurance policies are also feeling the "pinch." Most of my individual clients see increases of 18-25% a year.

It is all of these folks (and there are tens of millions of them), coupled with those who have already been priced out of the market altogether, who will fuel the fire for radical reform. It is these folks who complain - long, loud and bitterly - that the American dream is leaving them behind. It is these folks to whom the politicians will ultimately listen, because they're the ones making all the noise. It is these folks who will ultimately define what the next set of reforms looks like - and those reforms will NOT be confined only to the small group and individual markets - nor do these folks give a rat's rear end if the insurance industry is involved. (After all, we're doing such a wonderful job for them now.)

And, in my opinion, rightfully so. The health insurance industry (with lots of complicity from legislators, lobbyists and industry groups like ours) has let them down. Period. We have chased profits, chased commissions, swallowed every piece of spin the insurance industry has fed us, and generally ignored the growing number of folks who are beyond dissatisfied with the status quo. They're mad, and they're not going to take it any more.

We're not talking about 5 million, or 15 million people. No, when you add together all small group employees and their dependents, with those who have individual coverage, and the 50 million or so who have no coverage, you're talking about 100 million people or more.

We have brought this upon ourselves, because we (the industry, maybe not each of us individually) have ignored what folks want in favor of what WE want. The industry has ignored calls for more efficient claims and billing, lower bloat, curtailing outrageous CEO and executive salaries, and a more reasonable approach to return on investment. Our industry has ignored any attempt at out-of-the-box thinking to get reasonably priced health insurance to most low-wage Americans, instead focusing on mis-communications to get Americans to buy into what the industry wants ("High Deductible Health Plans are good for you. We don't care if you can't afford the deductible. Now accept that fact and shut up.") Most of all, our industry has simply ignored an ever-louder clamor for us to get our act together. Instead of focusing on a long-term vision for the future of the industry (one that actually includes the very consumers to whom we sell products), the health insurance carriers have instead bellied up to the short-term trough of immediate reward (executive compensation, shareholder value, golden parachutes).

I'm normally not negative, either. I've always considered myself a realist. Yet here I am, watching every prediction I've made over the past 15 years on forums like this come true.

The saddest part is listening to all of the gnashing of teeth and screeching and wailing, mostly from the very folks who have repeatedly turned a deaf ear to the situation year after year because they were making gobs of money. (Yes, I'm talking about a lot of you on this very forum). In fact, some of you are still wearing your rose-colored glasses, and acting like if you just click your red-sequined shoes together, you'll be able to get back home.

Well, you ain't Dorothy, and this ain't Oz.

Let's see what the President and Congress come up with, and try to work with it - because it is inevitable that the reforms will be major, because we've waited too long to save our current system as we know it.

I will not apologize for the above, and I will probably not respond to the rants, flames and cacophony that are sure to ensue. We brought this upon ourselves, so now we'll have to deal with it.

Note by Brian Klepper: John Sinibaldi is a St. Petersburg, FL-based health insurance agent - or as his industry association prefers to be called, "Health Underwriters" - catering primarily to small employer groups. He's posted reality-based columns here in the past, including a particularly pithy one recently on small group coverage in Florida. The fiery comment above was written to colleagues on a national health care brokers' forum.