Beginning of the End for Major Health Insurers [View all]

[Jackpine Radical]

Beginning of the End for Major Health Insurers

By Wendell Potter, OpenMike

05 October 13



I've often said that the Affordable Care Act is the end of the beginning of reform. Starting October 1, 2014, that law will signify the beginning of the end of the health insurance industry as we know it.

As I've noted previously, my former CEO at Cigna said at a leadership retreat that what kept him up at night was the fear that big health insurance corporations might someday be viewed as unnecessary middlemen, that their "value proposition" would come under scrutiny and found to be wanting. That insurance companies would, to use his term, be disintermediated.

That day has arrived.

Most of the attention this week will be focused on the glitches that will inevitably occur when the switch is flipped and the long-awaited health insurance marketplaces (also called exchanges) finally go live.

Yes, there will be technological snafus, just as there will be some people upset to find that the relatively cheap policies they have now will be unavailable next year because they don't meet the Affordable Care Act's standards. As of January 1, 2014, the law outlaws policies pretty much guaranteeing that people will be underinsured if they get sick or injured - underinsured because those policies have inadequate benefits and outrageously high deductibles.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/272-39/19727-beginning-of-the-end-for-major-health-insurers