Alan Katz is a past president of both the National and the California Associations of Health Underwriters. Previously Alan served as a Senior Vice President at WellPoint, Inc., the nation's largest commercial health insurer. In 2007 he formed the Alan Katz Group which, among other initiatives, published the findings of the Trailblazed Sales Project identifying the attitudes, practices and behaviors of successful sales professionals.
Alan Katz
Should brokers be compensated for helping consumers to enroll in government programs like the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) created by the new healthcare reform law? Until now, the federal government’s answer has been “no.”
Health insurance has long been a state affair in the USA. Insurance companies were even exempt from many aspects of federal anti-trust law to better enable state regulators to oversee their activities.
Brokers holding their breath to see if their compensation will be removed from the medical loss ratio formula required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will be turning a darker shade of blue.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners will be meeting in Austin, Texas this week to consider a number of issues related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. One topic will be how the medical loss ratio provisions of the health care reform bill impacts brokers and consumers.
Legislation to exempt broker commissions from the medical loss ratio provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is gaining bipartisan steam.
The ongoing debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is about more than whether this provision or that provision is beneficial or damaging to the nation’s economy and health care system. The debate is also about the appropriate role of the federal government compared to that of state governments and individuals.
Some quick tidbits and news items concerning health care reform you hopefully find useful – or at least interesting.
While the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is federal law, much of its implementation is in the hands of the states. Near the top of the list on the state's to-do list is the creation, design and operation of the health insurance exchanges.
In a recent post I suggested that President Barack Obama should abandon the individual mandate contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. My theory is that the uncertainty surrounding the constitutionality of imposing a fine on Americans who fail to obtain health care coverage starting in 2014 is both a political and public policy risk that is simply not worth taking - especially since the penalty for failing to be insured is unlikely to achieve its public policy purpose.
Math. Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it. We all like things to “add up.” We want ledgers to balance. And some folks even believe numbers don’t lie.