Oil is creaping back in to the middle 3 dollar range at most pumps (and rising other commodity prices), foreclosures are mounting like crazy - in Charlotte NC where we have a home 51% of all 2010 sales were foreclosures....unrest in the middle east, and these insane media/journalists on various shows bring on these also insane "pitch" men for whatever it is they want us to believe talking about how things are in pretty good shape? Are these folks using street drugs?? I mean are they serious? If you took out Obamanomics, i.e. just pour an agregious amount of tax payer dollars in to the broken system to prop it up and make it look like it is not that bad....a mistake, and another lie to us, the US drones. Reality, unemployment is probably 20-25% - what if folks have worked somewhere for 10 yrs at a 1099 and get layed off...oops, we don't count them and they don't count? Ridiculous.... with that as my backdrop, we are in the a great Dip and at the Tipping Point for what we do in my company, which is liberate small companies (5-300 employees primarily) from the bondage of health insurance carriers, their brokers, and the awful advice and push they both give their clients.
High-deductible health plans are the answer to the quandry, and giving employers tools to incorporate consumerism is also the answer. Why do you think Cigna, Aetna, United Healthcare have had THEIR own employees forced in to high-deductible health plans for over 10 years...THEY KNOW THESE THINGS WORK FOLKS!! THEY JUST DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW THEY DO, BECAUSE THEIR PREMIUM TANKS AND SO DOES THEIR VALUE.
I represent the solution, and Health Insurance Geeks push answers....it does not mean everyone will heed the message but at least we are part of the solution, not part of the broken problem that the majority of brokers and health insurance carriers are still trying to protect.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
My Manifesto - Remove Politicians from Health Insurance
They and them.....are the problems. They meaning all of the politicians jousting to make sure they save their seats, their donors, their pitch, their perks, and THEM, the vested executives of health insurance companies that simply are not following what we are begging for in the US....affordable coverage. Funny thing about this is it is simple to solve really...we just need to lead the TRIBE (and I am a happy Leader of the tribe to which I refer) .... a HUGE TRIBE can get lots done...we need a full court press against large employers, unions, and insurance companies and the politicians intertwined within to FORCE them to deal with disgruntled Americans on this subject. Look what Twitter and Facebook did in Egypt, I mean COME ON PEOPLE!
I SIMPLY DO NOT WANT THE GOVERNMENT TOUCHING ANYTHING HEALTH INSURANCE RELATED...read that again please. Our government is responsible for many of our current bankrupt entitlements and I do not care who points a finger in either direction, Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever...
In a country (yes us in the US) where we can't even fill top level IT and engineering jobs from within because our talent pool is frankly less than those in other developing countries, we are up against the ropes and ready to go down like Apollo Creed in Rocky III (I think it was that one)...pretty scary stuff for someone like me born on a tiny island off the coast of western Greece to a Greek dad and American mom...they brought my sister and I to the land of opportunity, the great U.S. and raised us here. Now 40 yrs later our society is crippled with debt, inter-political fighting and nothing is getting better, actually worse.
I read about what a Tribe can do (thanks again Seth Godin, you're great) and am throwing a stake in the sand and trying to build my tribe. My company actually sells individual, family and employer-sponsored health insurance, and here I am trying to lead the TRIBE to do things differently. My contemporaries or Peers think I am nuts "our business will get killed"....actually exact opposite. The losers that are trying to oversell, under-educate and profit will lose in the end, and I am not one of them. I just want to help people, employers, their families and employees, and lead my clients to solutions that give them the power to chose, spend wisely and always have predictable financial models in which they can have faith.
In my company we say constantly "the copay is and was the devil"....smart insurance companies knew we would all get addicted to the copays like "crack" and now when we try to lead folks away from that old "COPAY" they shiver...what's the copay? what's the copay? well the answer should be $1,000/mos/employee in premium is the copay. What flavor would you like please? No copay, no health insurance problems...no ridiculous mandated benefits (pay for what we buy like car insurance) no health insurance problems. No middleman in the prescription supply chain (yes you insurance companies) no health insurance problems. No drug advertising like it was long ago, no health insurance problems. But first, nuke the copay, and start asking our doctors what they will charge us. I mean COME ON, can you imagine getting your car overhauled at Honda and not knowing what it would cost? The lazy here in the US would say, man that sounds great!! Okay, lazy, you can't afford the new "copay adjusted" cost of a Honda CIVIC which is now $80,000 and a great lease payment is 2100/mos...okay, who can afford that? Well the 500% increase of it would be just like what has happened in the U.S. with the copay. It melted the system.
I am done for today.
I SIMPLY DO NOT WANT THE GOVERNMENT TOUCHING ANYTHING HEALTH INSURANCE RELATED...read that again please. Our government is responsible for many of our current bankrupt entitlements and I do not care who points a finger in either direction, Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever...
In a country (yes us in the US) where we can't even fill top level IT and engineering jobs from within because our talent pool is frankly less than those in other developing countries, we are up against the ropes and ready to go down like Apollo Creed in Rocky III (I think it was that one)...pretty scary stuff for someone like me born on a tiny island off the coast of western Greece to a Greek dad and American mom...they brought my sister and I to the land of opportunity, the great U.S. and raised us here. Now 40 yrs later our society is crippled with debt, inter-political fighting and nothing is getting better, actually worse.
I read about what a Tribe can do (thanks again Seth Godin, you're great) and am throwing a stake in the sand and trying to build my tribe. My company actually sells individual, family and employer-sponsored health insurance, and here I am trying to lead the TRIBE to do things differently. My contemporaries or Peers think I am nuts "our business will get killed"....actually exact opposite. The losers that are trying to oversell, under-educate and profit will lose in the end, and I am not one of them. I just want to help people, employers, their families and employees, and lead my clients to solutions that give them the power to chose, spend wisely and always have predictable financial models in which they can have faith.
In my company we say constantly "the copay is and was the devil"....smart insurance companies knew we would all get addicted to the copays like "crack" and now when we try to lead folks away from that old "COPAY" they shiver...what's the copay? what's the copay? well the answer should be $1,000/mos/employee in premium is the copay. What flavor would you like please? No copay, no health insurance problems...no ridiculous mandated benefits (pay for what we buy like car insurance) no health insurance problems. No middleman in the prescription supply chain (yes you insurance companies) no health insurance problems. No drug advertising like it was long ago, no health insurance problems. But first, nuke the copay, and start asking our doctors what they will charge us. I mean COME ON, can you imagine getting your car overhauled at Honda and not knowing what it would cost? The lazy here in the US would say, man that sounds great!! Okay, lazy, you can't afford the new "copay adjusted" cost of a Honda CIVIC which is now $80,000 and a great lease payment is 2100/mos...okay, who can afford that? Well the 500% increase of it would be just like what has happened in the U.S. with the copay. It melted the system.
I am done for today.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Individual & Family Health Insurance coupled with Group-Sponsored Plans
So get this....now many employers are passing on the full cost of dependent care (think your spouse and children) on to their employers. So when that happens we as employees see quickly how much insurance really costs.
The smart thing to do is to price out if you can do better on your own. Assuming you are relatively healthy, not diabetic and take limited maintenance medications for mild ailments, you certainly can do better on your own. The one thing to look out for are the nuances in product development. Things like maternity that are mandated benefits for employer-sponsored plans, are not in the individual market. But, for those folks who have already built families and are getting crushed with premium pay-throughs, take a look at our rate site and see if you can do better - www.healthinsurancegeeks.com.
The Geeks
The smart thing to do is to price out if you can do better on your own. Assuming you are relatively healthy, not diabetic and take limited maintenance medications for mild ailments, you certainly can do better on your own. The one thing to look out for are the nuances in product development. Things like maternity that are mandated benefits for employer-sponsored plans, are not in the individual market. But, for those folks who have already built families and are getting crushed with premium pay-throughs, take a look at our rate site and see if you can do better - www.healthinsurancegeeks.com.
The Geeks
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