Who Needs a Broker Anyway

[Yagents]

So, let me get this straight. Jost believes the average individual person is much smarter than your typical educated wealthy business owner. He also believes, that people on the nipple like him are good for the economy; And the small entrepenuer actually creating value is a drag. By the way, anyone know any of these "thousands" of business owners getting tax credits?

It's tiring being compared to travel agents. Last time I checked, my last vacation was paid for and ended last summer. My health insurance still bills me each month, goes higher periodically, requires more out of pocket costs, factors into my tax payments, affects the quality and access of my healthcare, and the list goes on. Alan Katz had a good explanation of this comparison on his blog a few months ago.

Jost argues that while agents may not be needed for individuals, their services to businesses will take on a more important role. Thousands of small businesses have already started to buy insurance plans to take advantage of previously unavailable tax credits.
Industries will always go through changes and most survive, he said.
“Ten years ago you couldn’t buy a plane ticket without a travel agent. Now there are still travel agents, their services are just more specialized. Most people go on the web and buy a plane ticket,” said Jost. “If we had said then: ‘We need to protect travel agents,’ would that have been a good thing for the economy?”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47128.html#ixzz1AMKZ4hhZ​

 

[dgoldenz]

“Insurance commissions were trending downward anyway, and the industry can and will have to adjust,” said Tim Jost, a consumer advocate with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. “Just because health care costs increased 20 percent, doesn’t mean the difficulty of the job of the broker increased 20 percent.”

A few years ago, people used to stay on the same plans for 5-7 years and there was a limited selection because most of it was just low deductible co-pay plans. Now you have 10 different plan designs/deductibles/co-insurance options from 5-6 different companies, people getting rate increases and switching plans every year, etc. No, the difficulty hasn't increased at all...what an ***.

 

[somarco]

Home prices are where they were 10 years ago and real estate agents are getting the same percentage on each sale. That is the way life is supposed to be.

Jost makes as much sense as Ezra Klein who also has no clue.

 

[Norwayguy]

First let me say I didn't bother to read the article...But I'm going to assume Jost is saying with the coming GI there is no need to use an agent if you are an individual....I am going to agree with Jost on this point....I live in a GI state and I am not aware of any individuals using the services of an agent to purchase individual Medical coverage, the reason being is we really only have 2 carrier Anthem BC and Mega. The Anthem plans are pretty easy to understand but very few people by them...I think the last time I looked Anthem had 15K people on Individual plans for the entire state...oh the reason why no one uses an agent is that most people can't handle the $1K or more per month for the cost of these plans before I bcame an Insurance Agent I could figure out how the plans I could afford would work those plans were all High Deductible plans we had no co-pay plans because no one could afford them...So 10 years ago I would have purchased a $15K High Deductible plan for myself and family and the way the plan worked is that for the first $15K I would pay every penny if I was looking at the family option is would be $30K before the carrier stepped in yes enough to save me from a major major problem but pretty useless for the average Mainer. GI has been such a great deal for the state of Maine.