Lowering Health Costs for the Self-Employed

Ignorance is Bliss to Many

I sell health insurance. I work with many dozens each year. Of those, very few can tell me much about thier plan except thier co-pay. Most are surprised to even find out they have additional OOP cost, like a deductible. Those have a group insurance plan know far less than those that have bought individual coverage.

Based upon this experience, I reasonably assume that most people have become comfortable "not knowing". As thier premiums creep or jump up, they might become motivated to shop health coverage. Many do not, I see families paying well over $1,000 for coverage per month that could have thier own policy for a few hundered dollars. The premium saving would more than fund thier deductible. Given this, I would say most of the insured are what I call "classically and mathmatically way over insured". The percentage of people paying too much for coverage far outpaces the 4 or 5% that do not have any coverage. Being over insured is a far bigger problem than those who are not covered. This financial strain is what is hurting health coverage and making it an issue.

Becareful what you wish for. The goverment, especially our Federal goverment does not currently run any current health programs that have financial solvency for much more than the current decade. Medicare will soon be out of money.

Also some common-sense needs to be considered when looking at govermental control of health coverage. First, health care is different than health coverage and that health insurance is still another thing. Often these three terms are all thrown into the same discussion and mistakenly used to replace one antoher. Next, more govermental mandates on what health insurance companies must cover has a documented history of only adding cost and more goverment to regulate the mandates. Third, in the United States, nearly all of our care givers and doctors are not goverment employees. Many of them do not want to be either and might consider closing thier offices if they have more red tape to deal with.

It is silly to put the responsibility for reforming the healthcare and insurance market on the goverment as a viable solution. The goverment will by its very nature make it cost more. The real solution is for each adult to take a little personal responsibility to control thier assess thier needs, control thier cost and shop thier market for the best overall coverage value. Everyone would be far better served by find a trusted health insurance agent to advise them that to put hier trust into goverment health care or the goverment health insurance exchance.

As an agent, I do not fear goverment coverage will end my career. I currently sell supplemental plan to Medicare. Ask around, eveyone you know who is on Medicare has either a supplement or Advantage plan because it is not full health coverage. If we went to national health care, my market would only grow.

We all need to fix it by becoming a little smarter...

MN Health Insurance Agent of MN @ Jun 23, 2008 10:18:48 AM