What’s that light in the tunnel?

The public does not like health insurance companies. And neither does Congress.
Health plans are blamed for rising health care costs by far more Americans than point an accusing finger at pharma companies, the government, hospitals or physicians. Fully 41% of respondents say health plans are most responsible for the surge in health care expenses, compared to only 16% who blame big pharma.
And by the way, political party affiliation doesn’t really affect the numbers at all.
You can moan and groan, whine and sigh, and decry the ignorance of the average survey respondent, or you can accept this for what it is – a blast of the whistle and glare from the headlight of reality.


The health insurance industry has done a great job of selling the public – on the benefits of a single payer plan.
Between ill-advised (and illegal) cancelations of insurance policies held by individuals who have the gall to actually get sick, a refusal to actually explain benefits in terms normal humans can grasp, and a complete failure to justify the hefty surcharge they receive for providing Medicare Advantage plans, health plans look arrogant and out of touch.
It didn’t have to be this way.
If there’s one service that should be easily (and positively) branded, it is health insurance. Taking care of sick folks, helping expectant mothers, easing the pain of the elderly, eliminating that awful paperwork and getting America out of the sickbed and back on its feet – how great a message is that?
Instead health plans spend their time, money, and intellectual capital avoiding selling insurance to anyone who needs it, canceling policies for individuals who get sick, tightening the reimbursement screws on physicians (who are the face of health care to the public), and making the whole thing incredibly complex and difficult and a huge pain in the butt.
Hell, look at big oil. British Petroleum has done a pretty nice job positioning itself as the green oil company, with a nice flower-type logo and talk about responsibility and alternative energy, all the while spilling crude in Alaska, operating unsafe tankers, and devoting a tiny fraction of their R&D budget to ‘green energy’.
BP et al have figured out that their public image is critically important to their success. If the public views the company positively, they are less likely to be hauled in front of Congress for hearings and pilloried in the press.
Health plans start out way ahead of big oil – pictures of healthy babies and smiling octogenerians and active families are much more powerful than schools of happy dolphins near an oil rig belching smoke. But by not investing in branding, by consistently doing the wrong thing, by making health insurance and health care byzantine and frustrating beyond measure, the health insurance industry has managed to make big oil look good by comparison.
The next President will very likely be a Democrat. The House will become even more Democratic, and the Senate may see a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats. These men and women have a mandate to fix a lot of what’s wrong with this country, and they are not going to be shy about taking a sledgehammer to health plans.
At this point there is little health plans can do to avoid the blows. The time to build a positive image was two years ago, back when they were getting fat off Medicare Advantage subsidies. Now, health plans can count themselves fortunate if they avoid becoming little more than administrators for a single payer system, a fate they rightly deserve.