Is Anybody Buying Health Insurance?

[ins.dave]

I know a lot of people that do that same type of financial "planning" Just because it is good now, does not mean it will be good tomorrow! You are so right about people wanting to believe what they want. When the Kool Aid wears off there are going to be an awful lot of headaches.

Kind of like my days in the music industry!

Music industry?
Please, let’s not go down that road.
Hey, whatcha say we start doing rap music? I’m only half kidding. Did you know that Mr. Potato headed look’n JZ made 30,000,000 in 2008? That’s wrong on a level that I can not begin to articulate.

No two ways about it. It sucks right now. This kind of thing happens and must happen with economies from time to time as they right themselves. People have short memories. Trick is not to be one of them.
It’s frustrating even for those that have been in the industry for a while because even for us new growth has slowed.
I’m the kind of guy who just refuses to play someone else’s game. Haven’t had a car payment in 5 years. The car I have works great. I appreciate it. I remember taking the bus, and then driving around in a 1985 Dodge Dart for a while before I started to get it together. Next to taking the bus, I was as happy as a clam in that thing.
Saw this thing on the BBC this week. Showed a brother and sister living in Cambodia. Both work on a farm. Can’t even afford malaria meds … another kid living in Kenya who is going to school on Sat. and Sundays just so he can get one meal a day. We spend millions trying to lose weight every year; for as long as I can remember. Even in this recession. Americans are petty and afraid. They think material items will make them happy instead of realizing that money is far and away and first and foremost about SECURITY.
I’m an opinionated A – hole? Perhaps. Tell me why 10,000,000 people who live in families that make over $70,000 per year have no major medical?
“I just got a new Passat; it is only $40 more per month more than my last car payment (puffs on a cigarette) …” This from a guy I know.
I thought the idea was to “get ahead,” not to try and keep up? We are supposed to emulate this? This is investment (growth) minded?

 

[ABC]

Right now group sales are way down for me. To be honest this is going on now over a year. When I prospect on groups under 50 a lot have dropped health plans. Blue Collar companies are folding left and right.
So I shifted my approach to pick up AOR's on groups that I could not move.

I have had to adjust my business model and focus on Individual sales. Individual sales are double what I have done in years past. I also have picked some life business.

For a newbie to go out and write health business now you better have a great sales pitch. Even seasoned agents are fighting for deals right now that they would not have in the past.


If the BO gets his way most of us will be out of the health business by 2013.

 

[motoxxx]

You speak the truth ABC.!

InsDave, I was a sound engineer for about 20 years and owned a large sound and light system rental company and I did concerts and tours for many famous people. As far as rap music goes, I hope to someday flush the toilet on the entire genre. Man I hate that stuff!

I make about $150K per year, and I have a 1999 Ford Ranger pickup, no consumer debt other than my mortgage, and I make ALL buying decisions based on value and lost opportunity cost. My sister on the other hand is married to all of her junk (BMW, $1 million dollar house on the lake, ski boats etc) and she is miserable. You are totally correct about people trying to buy their happiness through stuff and their thoughts about "getting ahead" meaning goin gfurther into debt. Just because you can afford something today, doesn't mean you'll be able to tomorrow! People are so dumb!


BTW- The US is about the only nation on the planet where our poor people have cable tv, cell phones and are grossly overweight!

 

[somarco]

Anyone waiting on Obamacare/Kennedycare is not really a prospect unless you are giving away health insurance.

I still find folks, or rather, they find me, almost every day who are looking to buy health insurance as opposed to having it handed to them. Due to the downturn in the economy, many of these folks are coming off COBRA or losing their group insurance as employers go out of business or cancel the health plan. As a result, many of these folks have health issues that make it even more challenging to find something for them.

This is probably a jaded view, but I am convinced that group health insurance is making us sicker as a nation. Most of these folks don't have anything really serious, but are taking quite a few meds "just in case" because doc visits and Rx only costs $20.

Seems like everyone I talk to is on low dose cholesterol and BP meds as well as an anti-depressant.

If things keep going the way they are now, I may have to get on an anti-depressant.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Referral yesterday - female 29 no coverage available through work. Really wanted to get covered quickly because she wants to go on depression meds; "how soon can I get covered?"

 

[ins.dave]

Anyone waiting on Obamacare/Kennedycare is not really a prospect unless you are giving away health insurance.

I still find folks, or rather, they find me, almost every day who are looking to buy health insurance as opposed to having it handed to them. Due to the downturn in the economy, many of these folks are coming off COBRA or losing their group insurance as employers go out of business or cancel the health plan. As a result, many of these folks have health issues that make it even more challenging to find something for them.

This is probably a jaded view, but I am convinced that group health insurance is making us sicker as a nation. Most of these folks don't have anything really serious, but are taking quite a few meds "just in case" because doc visits and Rx only costs $20.

Seems like everyone I talk to is on low dose cholesterol and BP meds as well as an anti-depressant.

If things keep going the way they are now, I may have to get on an anti-depressant.

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Totally dude.
Check it. Spoke to this whiner a week ago. A smoker, had to drag it out of him.
Coming off of a group plan with, I think a $20 co – pay on r/x, etc.
When I told him that an ins. co. would rate him on his nexium use for acid reflux he told me that he could do without it.
Is that classic? These idiots can not wait to spend someone else’s money(insurance companies), even if they do not need the treatment …

 

[Insuranceman]

I had a family coming off Cobra with 10 pages of medical conditions. They took every pill the doctor prescripted to them over the pass 10 years. Even their kids were on 3-4 prescriptions. Their only option was to go on a state guaranteed plan for $ 2,300 a month.

 

[somarco]

coming off Cobra with 10 pages of medical conditions

Anything serious, or mostly just a family of pill poppers?

We have some friends in Chattanooga that are health insurance abusers. Both have good jobs with benefits and they double cover each other.

Even still, they have several medical bills in collection. Go figure.

Sometimes it seems like they spend more time at the doc's and ER than at work. Both are chronic whiners.

Last week the wife, "borderline diabetic" taking Metformin to control blood sugar, drank too much. She woke up around midnight, complaining about a headache. She thought she had a stroke, and woke up her husband to take her to the ER.

Several hours later when nothing turned up she insisted on an MRI. The MRI showed she had a sinus infection.

Both of them took the day off from work to recover.

Things like this inflame me.

 

[ins.dave]

I had a family coming off Cobra with 10 pages of medical conditions. They took every pill the doctor prescripted to them over the pass 10 years. Even their kids were on 3-4 prescriptions. Their only option was to go on a state guaranteed plan for $ 2,300 a month.

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Bad news all around and they do not realize what they are doing to their medical histories in terms of futher underwritting. Mindless. Man some people are just like that. It does run in families. I call em scripies.

 

[ABC]

I live in a state that is just filled with pill poppers.
No one wants to take responsibility for their health.
They would rather take a pill.

I was working a group health plan for a manufacturing company and I pitch a disease management program.
I wanted to set it up like a 12 step program. Instead of health coaches and Nurses I called them sponsers.

I feel we have an addition in this country that no one is talking about. Unhealthy people who don't care and want their employer/gov/ins. company/ to take care of them.

The Doctors share responsiblity. Over 50% of anti depressants being prescribed in this country do not have a diagnoses.
Anyone dopeing their kids up with anti depressents should be charged with a crime along with the Doc's.