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WORD COUNT
FEBRUARY 28,
2007
INSURANCE: ANOTHER
WART ON THE BODY POLITIC—by William A. Collins
Sure, I’m covered
When I’m sick;
If I can keep,
From getting tricked.
It’s very good to
have insurance. What’s bad is to have an insurance company. How often,
for example, do mothers say, “My son, the insurance broker?” Perhaps
they’ll say, “My son, the doctor,” or maybe even, “My son, the lawyer,”
but the “insurance broker” may make one wonder, “When does his trial
start?”
Iraq, curiously, can
again help us grasp just where insurance fits into our social
framework. It seems that another of the many provisions the United
States inserted in the Iraqi constitution requires that foreign
insurance companies be given free rein in the local industry. Insurance
there, as here, is a cash cow and insurers close to the Bush
administration didn’t want to miss out on claiming their share of the
booty.
Not that there isn’t
plenty of booty here at home. Connecticut’s attorney general has his
hands full dealing with complaints from customers, agents, and
miscellaneous abused parties. Our state remains, at lest in its own
mind, Insurance Capital of America, much as Waterbury remains the Center
of the Universe. Indeed the whole nation is an insurance battleground,
but with so many companies headquartered here, our courts are a hotbed
in the national struggle.
Symbolic of industry
mentality is United Health Group, Inc. of Minneapolis. It’s chairman,
William McGuire, rode off into the sunset in December with an annual
pension of $5.1 million and severance pay of $6.5 million. Seems there
had been some problem with backdating of stock options so he had to go.
This helps explain where our premiums go too.
For all of us though,
it is worth reflecting on how insurance companies maximize profits.
There are two ways. One is to deny coverage to applicants who look as
though they might one day file a claim. The other is to find ways to
deny claims that have already been filed.
Health insurers thus
try to avoid customers who have ever been sick, and auto insurers avoid
drivers who have ever had an accident. Property insurers are similarly
staying away from regions that have ever had a storm.
And once you’re sick,
health insurers often resist covering your illness or your medication,
an may severely limit your number of days in the hospital or in rehab.
It’s nothing personal, mind you, just business.
I our own household
the auto insurance seemed to be getting a little steep recently, for a
couple with no accidents, so the local agent looked around for us. He
found another company that quoted the same price for a year that the
first company wanted for 6 months. That’s called a “competitive
marketplace.” There are lots of competing prices out there, but only a
clairvoyant shopper can find them for herself.
Nor can one
necessarily trust the independent agents either. Another scandal
involved insurers paying agents (including one of the nation’s biggest)
under the taable to steer business their way. And now insurers are
taking heat for steering auto repair to certain shops with whom they
have a secret deal. You don’t always end up with very good parts that
way.
Luckily for health
care there is a way to escape all this conniving uiversal government
insurance, as Europe and Canada have. (Medicare for All!) For other
coverage you probably want to give your agent a lie detector test.
--
Columnist William A.
Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk,
Connecticut. A photo of Bill Collins is available
CLICK HERE
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