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An idea to help make the health insurance industry be more transparent and competitive for us

Posted , 3 users are following.

mike_85014
mike_85014

I have an idea that I have been rolling around in my head for a while now. I am not sure if this is the right section on this forum to post this idea or if there is a better section on this forum. If there is a better section on this forum then moderators, feel free to move this post to a more appropriate section.

My idea is to make the very profitable health insurance agencies more transparent and competitive. The health insurance exchange created by the government attempted to do this but there was a lot of push back regarding this depending on "which side of the isle" one sits on regarding politics. This was largely due to whose idea it was to create the government exchange. 

My idea is to have Amazon get into the health insurance business. Like the Sears catalogs of old, they already sell almost everything under the sun already.

Amazon would set up a healthcare "exchange" so to speak. Much as with the search options now available on Amazon, with this healthcare "exchange/market" idea, you could pick factors that are applicable to you (age, sex, single, married etc.). Amazon would then list all healthcare insurance companies,  from Aetna to United Health and every company in between that matched the criteria that fits you.

Amazon would be comparing "apples to apples" with all the plans, from deductibles, to co-pays, to monthly premiums to coverage caps. It would all be listed out there in plain sight for everyone to see.

Users would be able to rate and purchases health plans just as they would when buying an item on Amazon now.

Having this healthcare exchange/marketplace on Amazon takes away the political aspect of comparing health insurances so there would be less opposition to its very existence due to political beliefs. Amazon is also a well known brand/company that millions go to and purchase items daily so it already has the audience, visibility, size and brand recognition needed to pull something like this off.

The next step would be for Amazon to offer health insurance themselves so they could then undercut these large extremely profitable health insurance companies. This would create a very competitive and transparent health insurance marketplace. This would significantly benefit every single person in this country who already has or wants to get health insurance.  Many would argue that health insurance premiums, copays and other factors are out of control and there is very little regulation in this industry. This idea would help make things more competitive and transparent.

At the very least, if Amazon chose not to offer their own health insurance to the public, they could still do this healthcare marketplace/exchange idea I am talking about. This would still benefit every single person looking to purchase health insurance (by making all these health insurance companies and their services more transparent and competitive), though maybe not as much as if a big player such as Amazon actually got into the health insurance industry itself.

What do you guys think?

1 like, 4 replies

4 Replies

  • kathleen65757
    kathleen65757 mike_85014

    Posted

    Depends where you how bad it is. I am guessing you are the USA.

    In Australia we can sou4ce all that information for ourselves.

  • mike_85014
    mike_85014

    Posted

    Yes, I am from the US. A strong argument can be made that with strong profit involved and the necessity of health coverage, the medical insurance industry in the US is not very transparent nor is it very competitive. Nor does it seem able to police itself to give better rates and better coverage to its customers. One (or both) of those two things has to suffer for the sake of higher profit for the shareholders every year.

    Amazon inserting itself by offering public health insurance and by offering a comparative healthcare exchange so we could compare all the health insurance choices could change this.

    • ptolemy
      ptolemy mike_85014

      Posted

      We do have a lot of price comparison sites in UK for utilities and insurances. I am not sure how much I trust them though. 
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