I didn't get much sleep last night. Yes, part of it was staying up to watch the debate and the vote on the Pelosi Health Care bill which I would flip back and forth to while trying to watch various football games, but the real insomnia was caused by the result of their vote.
Their vote in essence caused me, and just about everybody else who works for a health insurance company, onto the unemployment rolls. It doesn't matter whether you are a claims adjuster, work a call center, sell the policies or some other job and you work for a private health insurance company or you are one of the evil heads of the corporation, your shelf life for having a job if the Pelosicare bill becomes fact is about five years.
The reason I have not wrote much on the healthcare debate is because I needed to tread very lightly so that I was complying with company rules regarding conflicts of interests and rules regarding release of information. I could bore you with all kinds of internal memos, complete with spreadsheets and Word documents to try and persuade you, but the time for that is gone. Most of the information was provided to Congress and still the Democrats voted to turn your healthcare over to the government; they have voted now and either way I will be out of a job, so I feel there is no harm.
A couple of things I can tell you that are hard facts are this. If you currently have a private insurance policy, starting in 2011 your premiums will double if you are lucky, and in most cases triple. It is unavoidable. It is the cost associated with the legislation which the insurance companies have no choice in but passing on. You will start paying these higher rates even though their government option will not be available to you for another three years.
Number two, watch your business headlines over the next month or so and look for the stories which have Humana or Cigna or Wellpoint announcing layoffs. It will start with 10% cuts probably and just be a continual drip, drip, drip every quarter. The company I work for laid off 1500 between January and March of this year and no doubt right here at Christmas time we announce another round equal to that next week.
Scare tactics, you say? The cuts would have happened anyway, you think? Think again. I will spend tomorrow all day in meetings starting to lay out the blueprint for how we will handle the shutdown of operations.
There will be a select few in this country who will be able to afford private insurance but for the vast majority of Americans this will not be an option for you anymore. There is specific language in the bill which prevents the creation of any new health insurance companies, which sort of flies in the face of their argument about increasing competition. Current companies cannot increase rates without government approval. You know those rate increases I talked about earlier? Well, Congress made sure that would not be possible meaning that the private insurance company cannot keep you as a customer even if they want. No such restriction applies to the government plan. They will be able to raise rates and cut benefits at will.
Yes, the Democrats, while proud of saying they have made insurance available for everyone, neglect to tell you that it won't be the insurance you enjoy today.
So America, enjoy your new health plan if it becomes a reality in a Democrat utopia and remember any government that is big enough to give you everything is also big enough to take it away.
My advice to anyone who works for a private insurance company is to dig out the resume, update it and try like hell to land one of the government jobs; no doubt an SEIU union membership goes along with it.
And cry for your children.
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