DALLAS — Woke up a little fuzzy in a hotel room this morning, somehow managed to start that little, single-cup coffee maker and turned on the television. Over the next 10 minutes or so, at least three different insurance company ads flashed across the screen.
Maybe that's been going on for a while now and I'm just late to this party. (We took a chance late last year and canceled cable right around the holidays. We wanted to find out if a combination of all the video-streaming services would work for us instead. Jury's still out….)
At any rate, as the UnitedHealth ad wrapped up and Ann Curry started talking to Herman Cain, it occurred to me this pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer approach might look like some kind of threat to the traditional broker role, and I wondered if maybe, just maybe, carriers really are trying to circumvent brokers altogether.
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I guess it could happen. But I think that might be oversimplifying things a bit, so I shrugged it off and went back to my Styrofoam cup.
Later in the morning, after several more cups of coffee, I found myself halfway through a breakout session at this trade show (yeah, I still go to those), where a bunch of HR managers and brokers started debating the role of the broker. One employer actually talked about his bad broker experience, firing him and having such a great experience working directly with the carrier rep afterward. There was no convincing this guy that brokers bring so much more to the table.
So, again, for the second time in a single hungover morning, the broker's role is called into question, if not dismissed outright.
As if things haven't been tough enough for brokers…
Speaking of which, anyone else hear that sound? Yeah, that was the Justice Department deciding not to ask an Atlanta Appeals Court to review its ruling against last year's health reform law.
Now, what that actually means in the long run is anyone's guess, but two likely — if dramatically different — outcomes immediately spring to mind. The more mainstream pundit reactions insists this means the U.S. Supreme Court will take this case up sooner and possibly render a verdict smack dab in the middle of next year's election cycle. Should make for some great campaign ads.
But a friend of mine at this show — who practiced law in a previous life — says that's just not the case. In fact, he says its a calculated move by the Obama administration to actually delay the decision on the law's constitutionality of the landmark legislation until after the election, which would certainly make things easier for the incumbent, whose job security remains sketchier than any broker I know.
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