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Another Healthcare Choice

July 07, 2009 – Comments (7)

 Supporters of our private health insurance plans suggest that having the choice of 17,000 plans is of great benefit to you.

 I choose to call my Congressman and ask him to support H.R.676, instead. 202 244 3121

Unless you have read and understand your health insurance policy cover to cover, including footnotes, perhaps you might too.

Testimony of Nancy Metcalf

Senior Program Editor

Consumer Reports

before the

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

U.S. Senate

June 24, 2009

on

Obstacles to obtaining clear, useful consumer information when buying individual

health insurance

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me to testify on the obstacles confronting consumers who attempt to buy insurance on the individual market. I have talked to many such consumers as a health writer for Consumer Reports,1 and I can tell you that I have yet to encounter to a single one who yearns for a broad choice of “individualized” plans in a highly competitive marketplace. They all want the same, pretty simple thing: a health plan they can afford that won’t leave them destitute if they get really sick.

They say things like:

“I knew it was not a great plan but I thought, it’s better than nothing.”

“I just wanted something to cover me if something catastrophic happened.”

“We knew the deductible was going to be high, but I thought that it was a pretty good

deal.”

“I thought, at least I’ll be covered if I have, God forbid, a catastrophic illness.”

These are quotes from real people who did their best to buy decent insurance. Then they did get seriously ill and found out their policies did not protect them the way they thought they would…because they were no match for insurance companies who know exactly how to design and market plans whose gaping holes don’t become apparent until it’s much, much too late.

2

Some of the reform proposals on the table include subsidies that will open this market to many millions of new customers through health insurance exchanges. These must include strong consumer protection and transparency provisions, because consumers really don’t understand this market at all. I’ll explain why.

If people bought cars the way they buy health insurance, they wouldn’t be aware that a car has to have brakes, or a steering wheel, or an engine. A couple of years ago, we ran some focus groups of people who had bought their own health insurance. We asked if their policies had an annual out of pocket limit, and they had no idea what we were talking about. Though perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered, because there’s absolutely no standardization about what expenses apply to the out of pocket limit. One of the most common exclusions is prescription drug copays, which can add up to thousands of dollars a year for some people.

As consumers, we are trained to look for a bargain. Buying a car or a flat-screen tv, we’re proud if we can get it for less than our friend paid. People think insurance works the same way. They never consider that if they are 55 years old, and have diabetes and heart disease, that no insurer could possibly stay in business selling them a comprehensive policy for $150 a month. That’s why so many of the junk policies we’ve looked at are marketed as “affordable.”

Many of the people stuck with bad health plans blame themselves for not reading the small print. I always tell them it’s not their fault, particularly since in most states, you can’t even see the small print – that is, the real policy -- until you’ve applied, paid a couple of months premium up front, and been accepted. At that point, you have a brief period to inspect the policy and send it back if you don’t like it, but I doubt that many people do. For one thing, they’d be uninsured if they did.

It is routine for policies to say they’ll cover a certain benefit, such as outpatient doctor visits, up to the policy’s limit – but that limit is, of course, on a different page and they don’t tell you which one, and it’s only four visits a year. Another common dodge:

sections on “what is not covered” that leave out vital information, like the United American policy sold in Florida that somehow fails to mention in that section that it only pays for $250 of outpatient doctor bills a year.

Many so-called affordable plans marketed to young adults don’t have prescription drug coverage, which seems like no big deal if you’re 26 and never need anything except an occasional antibiotic for strep throat. But what happens if, the next year, you’re diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and suddenly need a bioengineered drug that costs $25,000 a year? One of the most poignant cases I ever covered was a middle-aged couple who bought a United Healthcare policy with a $50,000-a-year maximum payout, which seemed like plenty to them. Then the husband got colon cancer, and his treatment cost more than $200,000.

Consumers Union believes that what consumers really need is access to affordable insurance that will cover all their medical needs. We don’t think policies that exclude or limit major categories of care, such as outpatient treatments or prescription drugs, should be sold at all.

But absent those reforms, at least insurers should be forced to be honest about what they’re selling. In clear, user-tested formats, they should disclose what a policy covers -– and more important, what it doesn’t. If the policy has low dollar limits on hospital or doctor or drug coverage, it needs to say so, clearly and understandably, and not on a different page, or in a footnote.

Consumers need to be told, in big letters, what their policy’s out-of-pocket limit is, and right next to it, in equally big letters, if there are any expenses that don’t count towards that.

They need to know approximately what their out-of-pocket costs will be for expensive treatments such as cancer chemotherapy, or heart surgery, or infusions of patented biologic drugs.

They need, in other words, a fighting chance not to be ripped off by junk insurance.

Thank you again for opportunity to testify.

For the record, I am submitting a recent article from Consumer Reports on this subject entitled “Hazardous Health Plans,” as well as a Consumers Union Health Policy Brief explaining our recommendations in greater detail.

I disagree with the hope that Congress is up to regulating health insurance in any meaningful way. I believe Congress will let health insurers write the regulations. The health insurers are obligated to try to protect their cut of your dollar.

I also disagree with the "free market" solution, unless you have a model country that outperforms the Government run/funded systems of France, England, Canada, Sweden, Qatar, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany...

I support H.R.676 (but you know that) as do the physicians of PNHP.

Thank you.

We now return you to your previous coverage of declining 401k's, and related disasters while reminding you that your likely to be inadequate policy is guaranteed by your tax dollar, should your insurer manage to err like AIG.