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Health Reform and a Health Broker: A Love Story
| I am Florida health insurance broker, and I am also an economic doomsday foreseer. Having a finance and accounting background, I have a very boring economic theory addiction, which means don't invite me to your parties. I have read so many liberal and conservative books about the real estate crash lately, and one can surmise that the only concurrent conclusion is that the country is in serious economic peril in the near term. To fix the current economic problems we are spending money that hasn't been made yet. A great deal of this money is currently budgeted on Medicare and other health programs including private and public health care. We are paying the bookie with next week's paycheck, and perhaps this would be fine if we hadn't been doing it for so long. With nearly all of the baby boomers getting ready to retire in the next few years health costs are set to explode! Currently health care costs make up 14% of the economy and that number is expected to almost double within the next decade which will mean that health care and related fields will make up an estimated 1/3 of our GDP. If you include the legal profession, nearly 1/2 of our population will either be engaged in receiving or giving health and the rest will be busy suing them. The doomsday figures of course do not end there and if I wanted to give you nightmares, I would recommend Peter Schiff's excellent books on this subject (do not read before bed). As a online , health insurance broker I am one of these guilty parties engaged in helping people get health care, and I can tell you that it is no picnic. Many of the people that call us have been laid off and/or have some serious illness that precludes them from getting individual health insurance. This means that they either find a new job, or throw themselves onto the mercy of the government assistance programs, that are luckily more abundant than many people think. These people will need to basically be broke and have no assets to get on Medicaid, or hope that their local government provides a county health plan. In Miami, Florida they do have such a program at Jackson Health System and it is being overwhelmed right now with applicants. This program is actually amazing, and we are lucky to have it as option, though it operates at a substantial loss Miami-Dade county. So, having bet my career on health insurance I am at a terrible crossroads. I had a choice, be like many brokers and scream bloody murder at the thought of a public health plan or try to seriously form an opinion divorcing myself from the equation. After seeing so many sad stories first hand, I am utterly convinced that Senator Ted Kennedy had it right when he said, "health insurance is a right, not a privilege." The only way to fix the health care crises is to hand the whole mess to the government as the private companies are acting in their own best interest. Everyone, it seems act in their own best interest including health insurance brokers like me. This was the founding principle of capitalism and of our nation, so it can't all be bad. But there is a point when it gets bad. And I am sad to say that day has arrived, no it has come and gone. We live in a bad nightmare of capitalism in the health insurance industry. What did you expect to happen though, when you gave health insurance companies the right to deny everyone that didn't fit their mold of healthy? I am not angry, nor am I surprised by this but I am comfortable with it, as there are people much smarter than you and I that already figured out all of this out hundreds of years ago. If the government lets powerful corporate entities set the national policy agenda they will of course act in their own best interest. If you let a Florida health insurance broker have a choice he will of course pick the status quo because it is in his interest to. I am by no means suggesting a socialized health plan, nor am I advocating any specific health care solution. As much as I read and write about the problem, I have no earthly idea of how to fix it. Really I don't, but it is not my job to. My job is to make sure that everyone in Florida that calls or contacts me has a chance to get either a private health insurance plan, or if that fails I want to be able to send them to a proper health care plan that will neither deny them for medical conditions, nor will it offer any less standard of medical care then the state politicians get. |
About the Author
Jeremy Ehrenthal is a Florida health insurance broker who currently resides in Boca Raton. East Coast Health Insurance is a Florida based and domiciled, licensed health brokerage currently doing the bulk of their business online. The company and Jeremy is proud to be the only company in Florida that offers a detailed look at all the Florida public assistance plans available to the needy, whether it is due to health or wealth issues, they believe that everyone is entitled to a legitimate health insurance plan. East Coast Health Insurance and Jeremy Ehrenthal are located in Deerfield Beach and their Florida health insurance quotes are available on the web.
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