A recent story in Politico confirmed what was already known in health-policy circles: In order to meet Obamacare’s arbitrary Medical Loss Ratios (MLRs), health insurers are cutting commissions to brokers. (The MLR is the ratio of premiums to claims paid out to health providers.)
Fair enough, many might say: The point of establishing this arbitrary accounting target was to ensure more cash flow to providers than to middlemen. This outcome leads to an unhealthy schadenfreude for me, because I’ve always thought brokers should have advocated strongly for individually owned health insurance, instead of the current employer-based monopoly, but unfortunately, because most health insurers pay commissions as a percentage of premiums, brokers’ interests were not aligned with society’s interest in reforming the bloated and expensive employer-monopoly system.
Read the entire entry at National Review Online.
Research and commentary from a former senior executive in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
No comments:
Post a Comment