Insurance News Hot Topics- Will Obama’s Health Plan Eradicate Private Health Insurance?
Posted:
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Category:
Insurance Training
Many people are more than tired of hearing about this ‘great health plan’ that the President is trying to get passed for universal healthcare. Nonetheless, people need to understand the impact that this reform will have on the economy, which is still reeling from the worst economic spiral since the Great Depression. When the economy still hasn’t returned to normal, you would think that the President would be more concerned about fixing the recession damage than universal healthcare, but it is what it is. The thing that concerns the insurance industry is the lack of private insurance options.
According to the bill, which has been changed and suggestively remodeled several times in order to get people to agree with it, all of the health care plans would be government-regulated and after 5 years, people would no longer have access to private insurance. What does that mean for the thousands of people employed in the private health insurance sector? Unemployment, presumably. In a time when people are literally fighting to keep their jobs and finding it almost impossible to find new ones, they want to implement a health insurance plan that will eliminate thousands of jobs (if not millions) and take a huge bite out of the insurance industry’s assets.
How is that going to help the economy, exactly? In a perfect world, that solution would be very effective. There won’t be the hassle of calling 20 different companies to get insurance, nor would there be a competitive race to see who has the best policies and rates when it came time for insurance selling. However, when you consider the fact that thousands will likely lose their jobs and hundreds of companies will close their doors for good, is it really a move that the economy or the people living in it can support right now?
Fortunately, this bill isn’t making much headway and might not even make it out alive. Those who work within the private health insurance sector are sure hoping that they don’t have to worry about this issue, but it is one that needs to be considered. There is talk of offering a public option for insurance to compete with insurance industries that are privately held, but it is still a situation where the insurance industry might lose. While the ultimate victors of the health insurance battle should be the consumers, where are they going to get insurance if there are no companies left?
