Why Don't Health Insurers Advertise?

It's hard to sit through a couple of hours of television programming without catching a glimpse of the Progressive Insurance woman, her apron covering her all-white outfit, because car insurance is a dirty, dirty business.

Similarly, the Geico gecko continually pops up with that affected accent and nudity of his, hustling his wares, and the deep-voiced dude from The Unit is always around the corner, preparing to strangle terrorists with his good hands when they are not hawking Allstate products.

Throw in ads for Safe Auto, Nationwide, and countless other icons of indemnity, and you begin to wonder if there's anyone left who hasn't purchase car insurance.

But it leads me to wonder if all of this competition actually causes folks to drop Geico for Allstate, ditch Progressive in favor of Nationwide, or jettison Safe Auto for AAA. Since there aren't a ton of insurance companies, it's entirely possible that the competition revolves primarily around dealing new hands out of the same deck of cards.

And then a thought struck me - why don't I see commercials for health insurance?

Could it be that there's no need for health insurers to compete? That would certainly explain their ferocious opposition to a public option being included in any health reform legislation.

I did some Googling and found this Wall Street Journal opinion piece, How to Insure Every American, by two Republican congressmen, Misters Shadegg of Arizona and Hoesktra from Michigan. They posit that the lack of health insurance competition is partially responsible for our current medical woes:

But there are virtually no commercials for health insurance. This is because the federal government protects health insurance companies from real competition. Insurers don't have to market to consumers. They only have to satisfy employers. In addition, a person living in New York, for example, is currently only permitted to purchase individual insurance in New York. Allowing competition across state lines would drive down cost tremendously.

Yeah, that's the ticket. Your government is preventing competition. If every health insurer was incorporated in Delaware, like credit card companies, they could take advantage of the friendly tax laws, sell shitty policies in every state in the union, and make money with both hands!

What's the answer, according to these two? Well, not a public option, or government intervention to drive access up and costs down. They believe in the market - letting people pull themselves up by their own IV tubing.

The gang of two tosses out some well worn GOP solutions - costs and control (let regular folks buy their own insurance pre-tax to enjoy the same accounting benefits that employers have for years), setting up a high-risk insurance pool for people with pre-existing conditions so they can buy insurance at the same rates as regular people, with the government subsidizing the difference, and fix the issue of the millions of Americans without insurance by reminding us that there's always the emergency room, and that rather than the evil government sticking its nose into the problem, just give everyone a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for purchasing their own insurance.

It's all about freedom of choice.

You'll notice that the dynamic duo believes in sacrifice, but not if it involves pain and suffering by health insurance companies or the medical establishment.

Living paycheck to paycheck? Take some of that money you don't have and buy whatever insurance you want, and enjoy the tax credit! Don't worry that costs will continue to climb, and that you'll probably end up bankrupt when the insurance companies wriggle out of paying for your care. Should I recite the number of personal bankruptcies that occur due to medical expenses for those who had health insurance? Here's what the National Coalition on Health Care says:

A recent study found that 62 percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses.  Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80 percent had health insurance.

What about cost control? Well, the problem, according to Shadegg and Hoekstra, isn't excess profit, lavish compensation, and other luxuries within the span of control of the health insurance and medical establishments. Perish the thought. The real problem is the third-party payment system.

It encourages excess spending, runaway lawsuits, defensive medicine (doctors ordering unnecessary tests and procedures out of fear of being sued), and huge malpractice premiums.

Again, consumer choice is the panacea.

According to OpenSecrets.org, Hoekstra has taken nearly $200,000 in contributions from the health sector, health insurance, and pharmaceutical sources, and Shadegg $1.4 million, since 1989. And they aren't really in the game, because their committee assignments are House Education & Labor, and House Energy & Commerce, respectively.

Why do you think they have a hard-on for businesses that provide insurance? Could it be a push to force the responsibility away from an employer mandate and onto individuals as a personal edict?

The WSJ piece seems pretty transparent - neither man wants to shake things up too much, just shift the burden of obtaining and paying for insurance to Joe Sixpack through tax credits, personal choice, and caps on expenses like unnecessary tests practiced by doctors as defensive medicine to avoid lawsuits.

Always on the side of big business and bigger money, at the expense of the health and welfare of their constituents. That's the Republican way.