Today the Wellpoint Borg collective has assimilated the last of the resistant for-profit Federation Blues spaceships that was challenging them in the outer Galaxy. But shouldn’t it be the Empire crushing the rebels rather than being the rebels (or am I mixing two famous sci-fi memes).
Given that the attempts by other Blues to turn for-profit have mostly been nixed, the health insurance now left with a big chunk of regional non-profit Blues, and 6-10 big national for-profit giants (with Wellpoint and United being more gigantic than the rest) and Kaiser and its lookalikes. But there isn’t such a thing as a national health insurance company–all of them are basically still running local market plans, and all are vulnerable to the cream-skimming going on in the HDHP market.
I guess there are some consolidation savings somewhere in all this mix, but I don’t see how any of this revolutionizes healthcare, although it does seem to have succeeded in revolutionizing the bank accounts of lots of execs at formerly sleepy health plans.
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PS – Yesterday’s Forbes HSA article said there will be 6 million HSAs by 2008. That sounds low to me.
You bet the Blues are vulnerable. Whenever we start advertising in a market the local yokel Blues companies start saying they are the leader in HSAs, ha ha. Today the Michigan Blues has an article out saying they are going to get everybody on HSAs, oh please. These rookies don’t have a chance. This article says that you can use HSA funds for the purchase of health insurance. I think they better look at Federal law a little closer.
Forbes had an article on HSAs yesterday and Dan Parren, who comments here sometimes, was quoted. Dan said to get an HSA plan that pays 100% after the deductible. I think we are the only ones with coverage like that in CA. Dan also said get a free HSA. That sounds like us too. If Dan would of said get a free HSA that pays 6% interest then we would know he was talking about us. But I know Dan was talking about other companies in markets other than CA. We don’t pay Dan money so he never talks about us unless he needs the best stats.
Dan always says get a goofy hospital rider on your HSA plan. Now I wonder who does that, ha ha. I would of said get HSA coverage with a “dependent conversion priviledge” if you have children. Dan would never say that. That’s the difference between Dan and me. But I enroll consumers into tax free HSAs and Dan doesn’t. But thousands of rookie HSA agents will use that Forbes article as a selling tool. The best Forbes article was written in 1997 on HSAs and they quote our VP. It’s called – “PSSST – Super IRA.”
It sounds like MI Blues are teaming up with Wells Fargo. Todays article didn’t say that MI Blues are paying 6% interest with no fees. They better go back to the drawing board.