Insurance Co CEO Shot Dead in the Street

[Vorian_Atreides]

I think the ACA made having insurance more affordable. It doesn’t guarantee coverage for every illness/condition at an affordable cost for everyone.

[SredniVashtar]

@twig93

Sure, but ACA was certainly marketed to the American public as something that would reduce costs.

To be fair there were a few cost reducing measures… that were never implemented or else were immediately cut.

[NormalDan]

My vision “insurance” is ridiculous. I pay something like $150 pretax in order to receive $250 off my contacts purchase every year. There’s roughly 0 uncertainty in the entire transaction.

[colonelsmoothie]

I still don't get vision plans

Somebody explain me this because I still don’t get it after discussing this at depth on the AO. How are vision plans a viable business? It seems like they don’t cover big losses that you would buy insurance for. Sure, it makes my eyewear cheaper so I have one but how does this make sense? In order for the plan provider to make a profit, they need to charge more in premiums than they pay out in losses but why would people pay more for “losses” with very low variance? Is this like a gym membershi…

[NerdAlert]

Luxottica. The answer is Luxottica.

[SredniVashtar]

@Jasper07734

which makes it seem like people want access to pre-paid health care rather than health “insurance.” Which is fine if that’s what you really want. Just don’t call it “insurance.”

(to me, proper use of the term “insurance” refers to what used to be called a “major medical rider” – risk protection from catastrophic health events, as opposed to having everything under the sun paid for. Again, that’s fine if that’s what you’re advocating for. I just personally can’t stand it when people use the word “insurance” to describe something that’s technically not insurance.)

I’m not sure what you mean here.

ACA makes preventive care “free”, which is a good example of not insurance, but also just doesn’t matter much.

The much bigger issue with health “insurance” is that some people are very sick, and they know they are sick, and we know they are sick, and so we can’t “insure” those costs. This has always been the case. You might think employer insurance was different than this, but it has also been aggressively propped up with subsidies and regulations, so that employees are essentially forced to pay for each others’ care.

[Jasper07734]

our vision plan, although it was boosted a couple years ago, is still basically not worth it on net. I get a better discount on the eye exam via AAA, and LensCrafters often just has a special that’s better than the plan benefit anyway. Plus I already only get an eye exam every other year since I currently don’t have a condition that increases the risk of eye health things.

[Jasper07734]

I don’t know. I could just be arguing word-choice semantics. I’m not meaning to detract/distract from the policy discussion.

[SredniVashtar]

Sorry if that came off as aggressive. For what it’s worth I agree, “insurance” is a bad term for what we do.

[Vorian_Atreides]

Let’s go for the term “warranty”?

[Mathman]

Yeah. When you are the insurer, and own the retail shops (Sunglass Hut, Target’s optical stuff, Pearle Vision, Lens Crafters), and own the brands (Oakley, and Ray-Ban, and so forth)… you have options on how to make money.

[Rastiln]

@NormalDan

My vision “insurance” is ridiculous. I pay something like $150 pretax in order to receive $250 off my contacts purchase every year. There’s roughly 0 uncertainty in the entire transaction.

It’s basic business.

I pay $17.28/year. My employer pays $66.30/year.

I use my benefits to get a free eye exam, $200 off my frames, and $200 off my lenses, and everybody involved makes a profit.

Duh.

[Cooke]

@NormalDan

My vision “insurance” is ridiculous. I pay something like $150 pretax in order to receive $250 off my contacts purchase every year. There’s roughly 0 uncertainty in the entire transaction.

This is the nature of a lot of the medical “insurance” that Canadian life and health insurers provide. The public system assumes the catastrophic coverages and the insurers pick up the crumbs like vision, dental, drugs, physiotherapy, etc., often with deductibles and modest policy limits (eg, 10 physio visits a year, etc). A lot of it is essentially dollar trading. One part of my own company post-retirement supplementary medical insurance that can be considered to be true insurance is my out of country medical which can be a catastrophic expense (and was for me on one trip).

Having said that, supplementary medical insurance comprises a significant percentage of total healthcare spending in Canada.

[twig93]

@The_President

it made insurance more affordable/available

Depends on which population you’re talking about.

It made my Dad & stepmom’s premiums skyrocket. They were the people who liked their plan and couldn’t keep it.

I’m trying to recall just how much their premium went up over like a three year period, but it was a LOT. I’m afraid I’ll guess wrong though. It was a triple digit percent increase.

[twig93]

Preach

[NormalDan]

How about how it regulates the relativity between young and old to subsidize older insureds at the expense of younger? And then we shame and tax young people for not buying it.

[stochiki]

Imagine millions of people on the same plan. Then optometrists want that business, so they offer discounts to plan members. It’s not really insurance.

[twig93]

That is actually a VERY apt analogy.

One time I even worked for an employer that paid our Costco membership fee, so an even more apt analogy in that case.

There’s also the tax incentive though.

Vision insurance premiums are not subject to income OR FICA taxes. Whereas the benefits would be if you paid out of pocket. (Although you could get around that with an FSA.)

If you knew that you were going to use exactly $240 worth of vision care in 2025 and your employer wanted $10 a semi-monthly pay period to provide you vision insurance that would pay for the $240 of benefits you’d take it due to the tax benefits.

Heck, even if it was $11 per semi-monthly pay period for $240 of benefits you’d STILL take it if you didn’t have access to an FSA or HSA.

[NormalDan]

And this is why I’m partly paid in dental premiums despite dental insurance being ridiculously structured.

[twig93]

I’m partly paid in dental premiums that I’m not even taking advantage of because I don’t enroll in employer dental.