About the author

Bob Graham is executive editor at Insurance & Financial Advisor and IFAwebnews.com.

More by Bob Graham »
Contact Bob Graham »

On the golf course in Salem, Va., last week, several insurance agents asked what I thought of the apparently pending health reform efforts of Congress and President Barack Obama.

I told them that my frustration was with the inability of the insurance industry to get itself together to fight the threat, which hurts every insurance agent, no matter what he or she sells. And more important, I remain frustrated that the health insurance industry can’t find its own solution to this crisis.

Long ago, representatives from the major health insurance companies – meeting as associations so as not to set off the anti-trust detector that some allege is lurking wherever two or more of the industry’s executives meet – should have locked themselves in a room and remained until a solution, preventing the need for government health insurance reform, was agreed on. “No one leaves until we fix the problem. Got it?” someone should have said.

Impossible, you say. Not really. Look how far the American Health Insurance Plans caved a few weeks ago. Hospitals agreed to give back some of the bucks they get for providing coverage to the uninsurered.

And now, the president of the Professional Insurance Agents – a property-casualty group – is speaking out against Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) plan for health reform. Yes, P-C people are talking about health insurance. The PIA president, New Jersey-agent Kenneth R. Auerbach, in a letter calls Kennedy’s plan “a nightmare,” saying the private health care system should be improved on, not “dismantled.”

That a property-casualty group is speaking out on the issue is both good and bad. It’s good because more voices create a symphony against the issue. It’s bad because it signals how dire the situation is.

Unfortunately, the time for Auerbach’s efforts and any health associations’ retreat (sort of like the Republican Party’s annual retreat) to resolve the health reform issue has passed. Obama is promising reform by fall, and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate seem all too willing to deliver the goods. Sadly, the industry’s inaction over the last few years has made it that much easier for the politicians.

4 Responses

1. watercloset Says:
   July 13th, 2009 at 12:34 pm

   Health insurance reform has come too far late, almost too late for me, but the private insurance industry’s stranglehold on our health care should be ended permanently. Single-payer health care systems should replace our hideous employer-sponsored insurance system. Insurance companies have controlled health care with disastrous results for far too long. We have the world’s most expensive health system, with nearly 50 million uninsured, and millions more with completely inadequate insurance, not to mention all the corny sheningans that insurance companies inflict to protect their profits. No, the demise of employer-based, private health insurance should expedited as quickly as our clumsy political process can do it.

2. Tony Ondrusek Says:
   July 13th, 2009 at 2:24 pm

   I need to repy to Watercloset above (btw, isn’t a “watercloset” the German word for “bathroom?”).
   WC states that health care is “disastrous.” It will be even more disastrous if have to fight for health care, especially if you already have conditions, are old, or are deemed “not worthy” of care by some government bureaucrat.
   A friend relayed a story to me about his wife who, while in England for a six-month business deal, hurt her leg. It became infected, and it took her three months (THREE MONTHS!!) to get a doctor’s appointment. Apparently, she was not an emergency or in need of urgent care. The infection did not go away and ended up getting worse, and by the time she got to the doctor, she had to be hospitalized and needed a huge regime of medications. That could have been avoided with a simple doctor visit, but people like WC seem to think that a public plan, such as one we might see in the U.S. and like the one in England, is preferable to a private plan that could have helped my friend’s wife.
   Many of the “uninsured” in our country choose to be without health insurance, and those who cannot afford it can still get care. I know of no cases where someone walks into an emergency room and is denied care, or if they are in an accident where the medic first asks for their health insurance card before treating them.
   Expidite the demise of private health insurance, WC, and you expedite the demise of quality health care.

3. So You Say Says:
   July 14th, 2009 at 5:40 pm

   I find it interesting that the horror stories attributed to England and/or Canada’s Health Systems are always in the “third person”, a friend of a friend of a relative… Like most urban legends designed to keep the masses scared.Yet rarely is it pointed out that both Canada and England have lower infant mortality rates and longer life expectancies than the US.

   Usually those speaking about how bad it is over there then resort to the “I don’t know anybody that’s ever been denied emergency care here”, canard. Another Urban Myth. And I would be willing to bet that those decrying the Public option also HAVE coverage currently.

   Unfortunately, for people with pre-existing conditions coverage is out of reach.

   Unfortunately

4. Tony Ondrusek Says:
   July 15th, 2009 at 12:57 pm

   So You Say says that he/she always finds that horror stories from places like Canada are always in the third person. Perhaps he/she hasn’t done their homework.

   Here are a few videos where Canadians say IN THEIR OWN WORDS that socialized medicine has cost people in terms of their health and their lives.

   1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Rf42zNl9U

   2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE-I0ombIEY&feature=user

   3. http://www.cprights.org/index.php

   What do you say now, So You Say?

Leave a Comment