You're the reason so many Americans want single-payer
The title of this article is not click bait. I stand behind that statement and here’s why.
The plans you design — and that your clients use — make up 52 percent of a $3.7 trillion health insurance spend in this market. This means you, the broker/consultant/adviser, whatever you chose to call yourself, have the single greatest influence over how people feel about health insurance in this nation. The benefits plans you sell affect nearly every part of how the people you insure will use their insurance to access the health care system. When people are unhappy or experience discomfort, they look for change. The grass will always be greener on the other side to someone who is not happy with something. That is human behavior 101.
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It is natural decision to seek change when experiencing discomfort. You might have already adjusted your sitting position as you are reading this without even thinking about it because you were not comfortable; your body subconsciously knew a different sitting position might solve the issue. A huge percentage of our behavior is, in fact, subconscious. The subconscious mind can process 20,000,000 bits of info per second, while the conscious mind can only process 40 bits of info per second. Every single time someone touches the health care system with the insurance plan or card you sold them, the most powerful part of their brain is logging the experience as a good or bad one. Every single human being insured by one of your industry peers is logging a subconscious health insurance/health care experience as well.
I have some good and bad news for you. The bad news is, the people you insure don’t care if you don’t like a single-payer system. The good news is, you can change their outlook. But you have to bring them a better working plan. They are influenced every time they pay a deductible, avoid paying a deductible, do or don’t seek care, touch their insurance card, see how much money comes out of their paycheck, see a doctor onsite at work or off, or fill a prescription. All of those things are contributing to their subconscious feelings about health insurance, as well as the health care system. You have the ability to influence nearly every one of those supply chain experiences, depending on how hard you are willing to work and shape their world view back into one that is in line with yours.
If you want to see this industry still around in 20 years, it’s time to get serious about problem solving. Stop pointing fingers and start working on changing the subconscious hearts and minds of everyone you serve by educating yourself and doing better than you are today. If you follow any of my music or LinkedIn posts- you have heard me say this before: There are employer groups out there whose employees — regardless of politics — don’t think single-payer will be better than the benefits and insurance they have right now. I am not talking about just the Googles and Amazons of the world. I am talking about 25-employee life groups up through the Fortune 500s.
I recently had this epiphany while walking with Ashley Baycot, president of ProvInsure, the risk manager for Rosen Shingle Creek Hotels. The company has more than 5,000 employees, an onsite clinic, and have solved many problems their employees used to have with health insurance and health care. They have some of the lowest turnover in hospitality you have ever seen. They also spend about $6 million less a year on health insurance and care than other hotel competitors their size. Go ahead, ask me if their employees think the grass is greener and want single-payer? They don’t. If a spouse needs a kidney transplant, it’s only $500 out of pocket. Want college paid for? No problem. With what they save on health insurance, it gets put right back into programs for all kinds of other employee benefits and local philanthropy.
How did they get here, you ask? By caring and problem solving for their employees. They refused to continue down a path of rate increase after rate increase and zero cost and price transparency from an insurance, pharmacy, and health care market that did not love them like they loved their own employees. If you love your employees or clients, and you consider them like family, it’s time to actually protect them. Most employers, public or private, hopes what they offer their employees is great for them, not harmful. So how did we end up in a world where people making $10/hr have $5,000 to $10,000 deductibles on an HSA plan with no money funding it? This is not protecting or caring for your family.
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I formerly worked at an insurance agency where a good friend and his wife went through a miscarriage that required a DNC. Anyone who has ever gone through a miscarriage knows it’s not easy. After experiencing that, my friend still had to eat a $10,000 family deductible on top of the nearly $10k a year premium contribution. This is how an insurance agency insured its own family. ”Hey, sorry you lost your child. Now you lose $10,000, too.” I do not think that is what any Republican or Democrat wants for their fellow man.
It’s absurd to think these things are OK, yet they are happening every day to those we are here to serve with our benefit plan designs. Many of you reading this have taken away benefits and increased deductibles on the people you serve as you tried to control rate increases or stay within a CFO’s budget. Some of you might have even gone into your renewal meetings beaten and exhausted and said, “Thanks, Obama. I give up.” Then taken your client to play golf.
I’ve spent more than 14 years in the insurance industry. Here is one great thing I know so many of the producers out there reading this have in common: You are a collective group of people who are among some of the most talented negotiators, influencers, sales people, and strong-willed beings on the planet. You know how to use your words and charisma to sell insurance. You have to be liked by the client, all the decision makers, the underwriters, and your own agency, to be successful in this career. On top of all that, you have to work very hard and face rejection day in and day out. Yet you keep pushing to create the reality you want for yourself. I mean, someone is typically fired every time they hire you. And every time you lose a piece of business, it’s typically because someone out there is just as talented at this as you are.
What producers do is not easy. It requires a special human being to be able to do your job. My hope is that many of you take these gifts and use them to work together to fix a broken health care supply chain that is bleeding all of our clients and prospects to death. Stop using your talents fighting an underwriter over 2 percent rate decrease when you might be able to save the client 30 percent on their pharmaceutical spend. You call on CFOs all day, so call on a hospital CFO or a doctor’s office that might be interested in directly contracting with your clients. Set meetings up with a local pharmacy or imaging center. There are so many areas of the supply chain that can help our clients and. If you don’t know where to start, please read some of the books I sing about in my parody videos or reach out to me.
Stop and think for a moment how different the insurance world would be if everyone provided what some companies do for their employees. I can guarantee your retention of clients would be much higher. I can also promise you would have more job satisfaction because instead of spending your days frustrated with underwriting and fighting tooth and nail for rate decreases, you’d be changing lives through people’s health care experience simply by selling a better insurance product, and helping your clients build strategic local medical partnerships. The answers to how to do these things are all over the place, but many of you have never been taught them. You just have to have the courage to implement the solutions once you become aware of them. There are several ways to scale these types of solutions and many of them lie in the books I sing about. Many of your NAHU chapters are also starting to bring in speakers that know how to do these things, as well as the benefits magazines you read. I have had the pleasure of seeing many of these leaders speak in person.
Because we are social creatures with a need to be connected to one another, we also frequently experience things together. We all know how it feels to watch a national tragedy unfold. We also know how it feels watching an underdog make an amazing sports comeback. How great would it feel to know that what we collectively provide the people we insure with the greenest grass they will ever see? Take the first step and start educating yourself in a new way and we will find out exactly how bright this industries future can be. Together.
Chris Yarn is CEO of Walk On Clinic, a logistics, landlord and marketing company that connects primary care doctors to employer groups on site for various services.