Beginning of the End for Major Health Insurers

[Hoyt]

51. At best insurers will morph into just administrators like they've been for Medicare since inception.

Insurance companies administer Medicaid and Medicare. In fact, under Medicare, they offer plans that 28% of beneficiaries have chosen over traditional Medicare. Most states, place Medicaid beneficiaries in private insururance plans. The government makes the general rules, and the insurance companies administer things.

The government is not going to invest the tens of billions in the systems needed to administer these programs.

And, another nice thing, insurance companies are the ones having the take the risk of covering 30 - 40 million uninsured, rather than the government.

Finally, while it is detestable when insurance companies decline care that appears necessary for sick people, there is no way to just open it up to providers to decide what patients need if the providers profit off the services. Too many would order an MRI, every lab test possible, etc., on every patient. The system would actually go broke like that.

I think these insurance/administrative companies should be paid a reasonable fee for doing these "administrative" things, but not profit directly from denying services. And I think that is where the writing is on the wall for insurance companies as we know them.