Boo hoo. None of the other employee compensation “goes to the bottom line” either. You’re a non-claims payment expense, like everyone else. Get over it.
I want the american people to have to pay every dime divided equally when the MLR does happen to go over 100% and an insurance company doesn’t even stay in the black and quickly goes into the RED .. Who will agree to pay that ?
Haven’t you heard Agent B? Kathleen Sebelius will send subsidies to companies that are writing coverage and are getting eaten up on PreX claims they have to accept. The agents will be cut out of the pie if this stands. The exchanges will be nothing but computer applications processed by unlicensed geeks and the coverage offered will be plain vanilla Medicaid type coverage. What a system.
As an insurance and risk management professional, I completely understand that brokerage intermediaries in healthcare insurance transactions must be compensated. However, the core issue is whether, as a matter of public policy, it’s even appropriate for the insurance mechanism to be the dominant funding mechanism for healthcare. My argument is that it is in fact fundamentally immoral for a for-profit healthcare insurer to earn an underwriting profit off of treatment for suffering, disease and bodily infirmities; every dollar earned as underwriting profit is a dollar taken away from the insured patient’s healthcare expenses payment. Not to mention the roughly 35% of every premium dollar spent (one could say “squandered”) on insurer’s profits, administrative costs, taxes, fees, and, yes, commissions to distribute its “product.” The single-payer model is not only a means of dramatically reducing the nation’s aggregate healthcare expenditures, but dismantles private sector “death panels” (thank you, Sara Palin!) that scale back healthcare expense payments for the sake of increasing quarterly earnings.
Sure parts of the health care should be for profit, like technology and services that actually provide value.
Health insurance is an administrative cost that provides little value. Total inefficient waste. This administrative cost is higher in the US than in any OECD country and does not increase quality of care.
~20%-31% in administrative overhead? This is ridiculous, I think the country that comes closest to this is Switzerland who also uses a largely private fragmented system similar to the US.
Also, if insurance was less complicated and more uniform (aka more efficient) there is no need for insurance agents. Sorry, insurance agents are becoming obsolete just like travel agents.
My question is where would it stop being immoral for anyone to profit from the the things that we need everyday. Next thing you know it will be immoral for Starbucks to profit from my caffine addiction!!
Everyone pay attention to what happens in the next 60 days. Many companies have announced layoffs due to the economy, the advent of Obamacare with its massive taxes,higher premiums etc. The Bush Tax breaks will end 1-1 and new taxes will kick in. We are now staring into the abyss of financial ruin. Agents will fade away as advisors, marketing of Health Insurance in favor of the so called exchanges. We hope to survive as P&C agents and agents heavily invested in Individual & Group business will be in big trouble trying to make a living.
Boo hoo. None of the other employee compensation “goes to the bottom line” either. You’re a non-claims payment expense, like everyone else. Get over it.
Brokers and Agents are not employees. They generally shop the market on behalf of their clients, the health insurance consumer.
I want the american people to have to pay every dime divided equally when the MLR does happen to go over 100% and an insurance company doesn’t even stay in the black and quickly goes into the RED .. Who will agree to pay that ?
Haven’t you heard Agent B? Kathleen Sebelius will send subsidies to companies that are writing coverage and are getting eaten up on PreX claims they have to accept. The agents will be cut out of the pie if this stands. The exchanges will be nothing but computer applications processed by unlicensed geeks and the coverage offered will be plain vanilla Medicaid type coverage. What a system.
As an insurance and risk management professional, I completely understand that brokerage intermediaries in healthcare insurance transactions must be compensated. However, the core issue is whether, as a matter of public policy, it’s even appropriate for the insurance mechanism to be the dominant funding mechanism for healthcare. My argument is that it is in fact fundamentally immoral for a for-profit healthcare insurer to earn an underwriting profit off of treatment for suffering, disease and bodily infirmities; every dollar earned as underwriting profit is a dollar taken away from the insured patient’s healthcare expenses payment. Not to mention the roughly 35% of every premium dollar spent (one could say “squandered”) on insurer’s profits, administrative costs, taxes, fees, and, yes, commissions to distribute its “product.” The single-payer model is not only a means of dramatically reducing the nation’s aggregate healthcare expenditures, but dismantles private sector “death panels” (thank you, Sara Palin!) that scale back healthcare expense payments for the sake of increasing quarterly earnings.
You do understnd without that profit healthcare would not be what it is today.
Sure parts of the health care should be for profit, like technology and services that actually provide value.
Health insurance is an administrative cost that provides little value. Total inefficient waste. This administrative cost is higher in the US than in any OECD country and does not increase quality of care.
~20%-31% in administrative overhead? This is ridiculous, I think the country that comes closest to this is Switzerland who also uses a largely private fragmented system similar to the US.
Also, if insurance was less complicated and more uniform (aka more efficient) there is no need for insurance agents. Sorry, insurance agents are becoming obsolete just like travel agents.
My question is where would it stop being immoral for anyone to profit from the the things that we need everyday. Next thing you know it will be immoral for Starbucks to profit from my caffine addiction!!
Everyone pay attention to what happens in the next 60 days. Many companies have announced layoffs due to the economy, the advent of Obamacare with its massive taxes,higher premiums etc. The Bush Tax breaks will end 1-1 and new taxes will kick in. We are now staring into the abyss of financial ruin. Agents will fade away as advisors, marketing of Health Insurance in favor of the so called exchanges. We hope to survive as P&C agents and agents heavily invested in Individual & Group business will be in big trouble trying to make a living.