We are a nation that is insurance poor.
Medical insurance. Vehicle. Homeowners. Renters. Homeowners title. Life. Business. Home appliance. Liability. Personal injury. Dental. Long-term disability. Computer. Phone. And many more including the ones that nickel and dime you to death: The ones you are encouraged to purchase at checkout when you buy an item when the helpful checkout lady smiles and says, “Do you want to add insurance? Just in case it quits working, you’re covered.”
Of course, one thing all those policies have in common is the fine print that makes the policy totally worthless. What the big print giveth, the small print taketh away. For companies offering such insurance, these policies are like printing money.
The second thing in common is how many hoops the policy holder must jump through. There is never just one hoop and all is swell. No. The covered individual must jump through an ever-increasing quantity of them that get ever more specific and narrowly focused until one can’t jump again. At which point the insurance company says, “Oh, that’s just too bad. If only…”
The third thing in common is how slow they are to respond, which is a hoop in and of itself.
The insured spend their time making appointments, choosing medical providers, and so forth, which brings us to the next thing all insurance policies have in common making them totally useless:
The Per-Instance and Annual Deductibles That Must Be Met. Deductibles of which most are so huge they can never be met unless one is at death’s door.
I remember when this ride down the slippery slope began.
Sometime back in the 1980s medical insurance policy holders were told about a huge change. Insurance providers were going to make it a lot easier for policy holders to use their insurance. Henceforth, many called themselves health maintenance organizations, HMOs, pushing the idea of the primary care physician who would then decide if you needed to see any other kind of doctor.
We went from knowing who our doctors were and getting an itemized bill so we could know exactly what we were being charged for, to getting a bill that said, “Pay us this amount now or else. Oh, and if you have any questions, call this number…” that was never answered.
When we got notice of the change in our policy, I remember turning to my husband, who was giddy about it all, and saying, “This will not end well. Mark my words.” And so, there I was, right again.
The insurance companies, though, were themselves giddy…for awhile. Profits soared and, like all dictators do when they finally get a taste of real power, their restrictions on consumers’ choices became tighter and tighter until eventually the worms turned and bit them through their britches on their rosy-red fat breeches.
Those worms are the rise of the Personal Injury Attorney and Obamacare.
Officially called the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare wasn’t affordable and it certainly didn’t care. It came into being as the natural manipulation of an already broken medical delivery system as part of a push to power by Democratic Socialist RINO Commies. Obamacare’s mandate treated all citizens as if they neatly fell into a narrow range of financial buckets with the sole purpose to destroy freedom of choice, demolish the free marketplace, and devastate the abilities of citizens to be financially autonomous.
Small business owners and those who worked for themselves were hardest hit because they fit smack in the middle between those employed by large companies and those who were officially poor. When a self-employed person called the ACA number to get help in filling out the convoluted forms, they got people on the other end who thought that gross profit was how much one took home on their paycheck. They didn’t even realize that the sole proprietor did not get a “paycheck” per se.
Net profit? What’s that? There are no places on the Obamacare form to fill in gross and expenses to arrive at a net. “Look,” says the helpful yet confused ACA Specialist on the other end of the line, “just tell me how much your paycheck is for, okay?”
Then there is the personal injury attorney. We can all agree that there are times to assign negligence and blame and punish the wrongdoer when others are hurt. This is a given. But now there is an entire industry without whose commercials many a broadcasting station would not be on the air. Everywhere one looks, listens, and reads, one is flooded with versions of One Call-That’s All, Call the Strong Arm, and Call America’s Largest Injury Firm because they care more than anybody else, doncha know.
So what happened? Umbrella policies are now being sold to people afraid of being sued willy-nilly.
See? We are insurance poor. One bad system comes into being to protect us from another bad system.
Then there are the Purveyors of Panic.
A particular commercial has been running for ages where this one woman looks into the camera with eyes that could have had fear in them but didn’t have to experience that fear because she had been smart enough to buy a credit monitoring service. Even though her identity had been stolen and a vehicle purchased in her name, the extra attorney service she’d signed up for saved the day. I am sick of hearing her story.
And then there is something called home title insurance. I have a vague memory of something like that being offered years ago and here it is back again with a vengeance being flogged by podcasters, radio show hosts, and others willing to read a script for a fee. What do these two types of insurance and others have in common? They are purveyors of panic who, for a fee, will make your panic all go away.
“Dear Consumer: You don’t have to worry at all. We will take care of you. You won’t have to worry and can be happy for a monthly fee.” But just try reading the mice type at the bottom of the contract.
Geez. Doesn’t that sound familiar?
“Dear Citizen: You don’t have to worry at all. We the chosen, the anointed, the wise, and the wonderful, will take care of you. You won’t have to worry and can be happy. All you got to do is stop thinking and give up your freedoms. See how easy it is?”
Yeah, that mice type will get you every time. In any case, when you feel the panic rising, hold onto your wallet and fight for your freedoms because I double guarantee you somebody’s coming after you.
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Born and raised in Georgia, Angela K. Durden is an author, publisher, editor, songwriter, performer, and more, living in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia, area. Support your Citizen Journalist by visiting her Consolidated Author Page and buying a book or three. See more about Angela here. Want to watch a fun video? Click here.
This was a fun read for me and thought provoking. I spent the last 14 years of my professional career in the insurance industry (both Life and Health). Yes, the insurance industry is overly complex but it is mainly because of the complex regulations that govern the industry and companies have to tailor their products and processes for their products in order to be approved for selling by their respective state regulators. There are years when insurance companies make money hand over fist but then comes along a year that will wipe out all the profits they’ve gained in the past ten years in the case of natural disasters. Such is the nature of the insurance industry and the product pricing. The trick is to ensure we charge a premium that will cover major disasters over time, earn and profit and oh yeah, make sure the premium is not so high that consumers will simply go without insurance. I’ve paid into homeowners insurance all my life amounting to close to a thousand dollars per year in premiums paid. I’m glad I do because two years ago was the first time I’ve ever had to file a homeowners claim because of a freak hailstorm that ripped through our area and my house took tens of thousands in damages. I would just make the case that yes, insurance is confusing and expensive but you don’t think you need it until you do.
Sure, Henry, I understand that. But there was a time when it wasn’t as complicated and yes, government regulations have been been the booger in much of it and yes, we need some types of insurance.
That being said, I believe government overreach was made possible because the industry itself left itself open to such overreach because of predatory practices such as HMO and PCP strangleholds on consumer choice.