Conflict of Interest or That’s Our Role!

Print this Article | Send to Colleague

I recently attended a meeting of the Governor’s Virginia Health Reform Initiative task force (VHRI). They had solicited feedback on stakeholder opinions on how the governance structure for Virginia’s Health Benefit Exchange should look. Few in our industry responded, but we did as well as the Virginia Association of Health Underwriters. While we don’t particularly care what the governance structure looks like, we obviously are strongly in favor of agents writing business and being compensated for business both inside and outside the exchange. Moreover, along with Anthem, we also strongly support a facilitator role for the exchange as opposed to the active purchaser model.

What was interesting was reading submissions from other groups – including so-called consumer groups. Several mentioned that, heaven forbid, insurance agents and insurance company representatives should not have a role on the Exchange governance because of our "conflict of interest."

Conflict of interest. That seems to be a phrase that’s used with a significant bias attached to it, and probably without a whole lot of education on its use. If I stand to obtain a direct and personal gain from a decision or discussion, then there might be a conflict of interest. However, if the agent's role is to explore the health insurance needs of a business or consumer and obtain the very best and most affordable plan possible for that client, don’t you think that this educated thought process would be beneficial for discussions on the health exchange? As Secretary Bill Hazel put it....if I’m on a plane, it would be nice to know that the pilot knows what he’s doing, regardless of the fact that he’s being paid to fly and obviously derives a direct benefit.

Sadly, agents are probably one of the least paid but most intuitive in this entire debate on health care reform AND discussions on how to reduce health care costs. Agents hear from their clients what their insurance needs are, they hear from their clients how the insurance companies perform and they hear how employees are treated by both physicians and hospitals. Agents see the abusive medical practices and they see overkill of procedures for protective medicine. I would bet that if we conducted a survey of our health licensed agents on how costs could be cut from the health care formula, we could make a significant dent in the cost of health care.

The VHRI is working toward a legislative proposal for a Virginia Health Benefit Exchange ready for legislative action by October of this year. It’s incumbent upon all of us to talk with our legislators and insist that agents have a role in helping to make the exchange work. If you even want to set up an appointment with your legislator and invite me to attend, I’d be glad to do so. The bottom line is, we need to educate the legislators in the Virginia House and Senate that agents have a role in the health care discussions....don’t cut us out.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Robert N. Bradshaw Jr., MAM
President & CEO