NBC News published a detailed investigative report on “skinny health plans” this past week. Their conclusion is that consumers are confused about health insurance and that the Trump administration is adding to the confusion. As a guy who has handled more than 50,000 consumer communications about health insurance over many years, I agree with the published report’s analysis and conclusion. Yet this this consumer confusion existed back in the years before the Affordable Care Act so we can’t blame it all on Trump just because he has pushed the ‘skinny’ health insurance approach by executive order.
I tend to react furiously to false advertisement claims by health insurance marketers
, often untrained telephone sales boiler rooms that notoriously mislead consumers. Recent claims that insurance plans are “ACA compliant” or “promoted by President Trump” are the most confusing to consumers lately.
Yet these alternate health plans do have their place in the market. Whether we call them “skinny health plans”
, “short term medical insurance”, “limited benefit health insurance” or “core health insurance”, my position has always been that some coverage is better than none at all.
Most people who pay for their own insurance are not adequately covered by any single health insurance plan, including the ACA health insurance policies. Whether an ACA plan or another plan works better for a normally healthy person is a function of the type of medical bills they will incur in the future; something we can seldom predict in advance.
In a perfect world
, we would be covered by a government-influenced basic coverage and a supplemental policy through our employer or purchased individually. Although we are far from a perfect world, Freedom Benefits can help small business employers redesign their health plans to maximize the benefits to employees that are offered through a combination of public and private health plans.