Say what you want about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – and we all have – but the still-unraveling legislation is already changing behaviors across the board.
For starters, the risk pool's been flooded with an influx of millions of young (healthy) adults who've been allowed to stay on their parents' policies a few years longer than they otherwise would have. Odds are these "indestructible" young people wouldn't be in the pool at all if they were paying their own premiums and co-pays.
Seniors appear to be taking a more proactive role than ever when it comes to their own health care and well-being. Since the reform law stuffed the so-called doughnut hole, seniors are jumping at the increased preventative care opportunities, despite the extra costs taxpayers are paying for. The jury's still out on whether this investment will pay off.
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Carriers, meanwhile, are actually cutting back. Well, when it comes to lobbying, anyway. While most of the leading carriers are still spending more over last year, they've really slashed third-quarter spending on Capitol Hill, according to a report on Nasdaq. Wellpoint, for example, has dropped a little less than 10 percent more than last year, but hacked their third-quarter budget by 34 percent. Other major carriers, including UnitedHealth group, Cigna and Humana, reported similar year-over-year increases and third-quarter plunges.
(I wouldn't necessarily read too much into that other than a cyclical winding down of the fight over the law and its byzantine provisions. But I am a little worried they might be giving up the good fight a little too early.)
And, finally, there are the brokers. Brokers – as most of you already know – are looking beyond the core life-health benefits business in droves now, hoping to shore up their threatened sources of compensation. Anecdotally, the brokers I've spoken to personally also come across as more engaged than ever before, as if they're finally getting it. We're fighting for our very survival here.
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