Big Picture
“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” - James 1:19-20 ESV
“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.” - Ecclesiastes 7:8-9
I wanted to start with a couple of Bible passages about being slow to anger to, hopefully, keep my nature in check as I write this. Recently the CEO of a health insurance company was killed outside of his hotel deliberately by what was a single assailant. I had a busy day yesterday, so I didn’t get a chance to check the news until almost 10pm (late for me) last night.
I found out many people had made ignorant and even insensitive comments about his murder. I was appalled at the crass comments being made in public. Having worked for health insurance companies for over 30 years, I thought I’d share a few supporting comments (I was never an employee of United Healthcare in case you are wondering).
First, at the four companies I worked for, there was pride in the work we were doing that helped people out in time of need. We were constantly deliberating whether the contract that we sold and that the customer bought covered the request that they were seeking. You obviously wouldn’t buy a new electric car and expect the dealer to install a home charging system unless you negotiated that as part of the sales contract. Even if you wanted to negotiate a home charging station, the dealer may tell you that this isn’t their business model and decline.
Over 24 years ago when we moved here, I stopped by a toy store after work to make a purchase. A customer saw my ID badge on my belt and made a point of telling me how good my company had financially taken care of her in her difficult childbirth. That message made me feel good and many people I worked with conveyed a similar attitude.
However, I hope it is obvious that the more services we pay for, the higher the premium we have to charge. Think of how you approach the food at a buffet versus an al a carte restaurant.
Second, there are a minority of providers (doctors, hospitals, etc.) that, how shall I say it, push a definition of appropriate medical care to include services that their peers don’t. For example, I had an employee whose brother was a doctor in an emergency room of a hospital (not in Kansas) where the facility made it a standard of practice to give every patient a CT scan when they entered. Even less straight forward, and I hope any medical field person would agree with me, medicine is as much art as science. In other words, there is no single standard way of treating some conditions.
Third, and this is a bigee, the affordable care act (ACA) for individual and group health insurance requires a minimum amount be spent on healthcare or refunds must be issued. The company where I worked, for example, proudly proclaimed, and still does, that they sent about 90% of all premium dollars to providers as claim payments. Regardless, under the ACA, if a health insurance company was keeping more than about 15% of the premium dollars to pay their own expenses and profit, they’d have to rebate money to the contract holder.
There are lots of things to dislike about our system of healthcare and its financing. However, the reality is that, unless someone is breaking the law, there is no bad guy to find and punish. I sympathize with every story I’ve ever read about a person who got caught in a red tape situation, but the reality is that the reason those red tape situations exist is that there are a few bad eggs gaming the system and ultimately raising the costs for everyone otherwise. Health insurance, because of the need for the services, is a highly regulated system (in fact, I believe it is the most highly regulated industry).
As far as the CEO that was murdered, as you see some of these comments, realize that he was a husband and a father and had family and friends who are now devastated by their loss. Maybe if we stopped and thought of that, we could focus our attention on some of those aspects of health insurance we dislike and propose or consider solutions to help them.
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” - Romans 12:3-5 ESV
