Episode 150
Make Sure Your Health Insurance Broker is Working for You and not the Insurance Company with David Contorno.
When you run a business, one person you usually meet and hire is a health insurance broker. In theory, these brokers work with the employers to secure the best deals for health insurance to meet the company's health care objectives. However, in practice, the brokers serve as a sales force for the insurance companies who lavish them with bonuses, trips, and gifts. The seedy underbelly of the health insurance broker industry is that they are really not working to save money or get deals for their clients - the checks are written by the insurance carriers and that's who they answer to.
Who do the brokers work for? You or the Carriers?
I spoke to Katy Talento in episode 111 who runs a business where she unbundles health insurance for employers and helps them run an efficient and less expensive health care plan. One of the problems she saw is that insurance carriers bundle all these services and then charge a very large administrative fee to run the plan. Also, their plans rarely save you money as they build in enough profit to cover the agents who sell those plans - the brokers.
That's the world that David Contorno is trying to combat with his company at ePowered Benefits. The business was founded with the intent of looking at real ways of not just unbundling but finding high quality and inexpensive ways to receive care. As Contorno said, "The only way to pay less for health care is to pay less for health care."
Health Plans Are Gimmicks
Through his 18 years of experience in the health insurance broker field, David points out that most of the various plans sold by insurance carriers are really just gimmicks that don't really change the cost of care. Whether it is an HMO, PPO, of some hybrid FFS plan - it ultimately just ends up being the same in failing to control costs. The reason is that the care comes from the same hospitals and with the same contracts no matter how they make the employers and employees pay with copays, deductibles, and coinsurance.
Even HSAs (health savings accounts) which are held up as a way to control costs by putting the patient in charge, rarely bring about the cost control as advertised. This is primarily because even using an HSA and picking where you get your care still is within the framework of hospitals, insurance contracts, and provider networks which all have massively marked up prices. Only by leaving the insurance network entirely can one see real savings.
Why Don't the Brokers Work for You?
Simply put, the work that health insurance brokers do is to carry water for the insurance carriers. The carriers are the ones who pay their bonuses, provide them with expensive trips to Tahiti, and give them sales targets for selling their plans. The checks aren't written by employers but by the insurance carriers. So naturally, the brokers respond first and foremost to what the carriers want. This doesn't make them bad people but understandably their incentives are not aligned with those you'd hope.
The reason most brokers don't even know they're working for the wrong people is best summarized by the quote from Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."
show notes
Episode 150: Today's show
Books suggested by David Contorno
LinkedIn contact for Contorno.
ePowered Benefits: David Contorno's company where he helps clients save money through finding truly less expensive care.
Benefits symposium: February 6-9 conference with guest speakers like Marty Makary speaking about how to improve health care.
Free Market Medical Alliance: The organization Contorno is a part of that advocates for free market solutions in health care.
Episode 111: Katy Talento at All Better Health describes how she unbundles insurance.
Made Simply Web Site Creations: This is the great, affordable website service that built my wife's podcast site. I cannot recommend this company more to someone looking for creating a website.
Always Andy's Mom: Home of my wife, Marcy's, podcast for parents grieving or those looking to help them.
YouTube for Paradocs: Here you can watch the video of my late son singing his solo on the Paradocs YouTube page.
Patreon - Become a show supporter today and visit my Patreon page for extra bonus material. Every dollar raised goes towards the production and promotion of the show.
