We all sighed and moaned when the sketches of the particulars were released after the bill was signed into law. Having to buy private insurance. Having to? That's was the answer? We all expected some concessions to the insurance industry, but this was ridiculous.
What wasn't included in those sketches, perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, was a provision that the insurance companies spend at least 80% of their premium revenue from individual plans and 85% of premium revenue from large group policies on medical expenses.
This week, the government defined what could be classified as a "medical expense". Insurers wished to remove commissions paid to salespeople from the equation altogether. The Department of Health and Human Services this week issued its ruling on how the insurers must account for their expenses, and sales commissions will be classified as administrative costs and will count against the 15% or 20% of non-medical expenses allowed under the bill.
Mr. Rick Unger immediately published an article in Forbes calling this ruling the death knell for the for profit insurance industry as the level of profit that would result from this new metric would not be enough to sustain the interest of shareholders and officers of the big insurance companies. Then, Sara Kliff published an article at the Washington Post questioning Mr. Unger's conclusions. Then, Mr. Unger published another article saying "Nuh UHH!" LOVE this stuff.
Whatever the outcome, this development, coming the same week the results of the Obama-engineered FIRST EVER audit of the Federal Reserve - you know, the one that discovered that $16 TRILLION in under the table cash payouts to all those banks and brokerages? - has got me thinking maybe I ought not to have been impuning Mr. Obama's testicles quite so vehemently over the past year. Cat may actually have some moves!
We'll see....
