The words trust and insurance are rarely found in the same sentence, at least not from the consumers paying higher and higher premiums every year. Reliability and confidence, the trademarks of trust, are not characteristics commonly associated with Florida health insurance companies.
Why is this the case? According to a report by Health Care for America Now, a consumer advocacy group, a few big insurance companies are stifling all of the competition in urban Florida areas. John Sherman and the writers of the Anti-Trust Act would roll over in their graves at the state of the insurance industry today. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida and Aetna Inc. dominate 45% of the health insurance market . Lack of competition among insurance providers has, among other things, contributed to rising health care premiums and major increases in the numbers of uninsured residents in Florida and across the nation.
“When you don’t have choice in the market, companies can do what they want to do,” saysSean Shaw, Florida’s consumer advocate for HCAN. According to Shaw, insurance companies are “making a lot of money in this system but it’s not good for the consumer.”HCAN has been investigating the details of over 400 insurance mergers since 1990.
According to one 12-page report, the market with the least competition among insurers is Pensacola, where the two leading companies account for 83 percent of the market share. The Orlando area has the greatest amount of competition, but the top carriers still account for a combined 45 percent of the market there.
In 2007, the American Medical Association reported that premium rates for family health insurance had nearly doubled, from $6,800 in 2000 to more than $11,000 in 2007. Critics of high insurance blame providers for raising their rates to increase profits, encouraging competitors to follow suit and push up market averages even further. The result is a noticeable lack of affordable health insurance in Florida.
Rather than address the costs themselves and the reasoning behind such increases, insurance companies just blame the rising cost of health care and say that the government is responsible for the existence of competition.
United Health Care spokesperson Roger Rollman said rising health care costs, not market dominance, are the primary driver of premium increases. “As far as we are concerned,” Rollman said of the HCAN report, “we think it’s nonsense.”
While the causes behind rising insurance premiums are debatable, it is clear that something needs to be done. There is very little that the average consumer can do to control personal costs for health care. But taking advantage of the competition that does exist by comparing insurance plans and premiums is the best chance of finding affordable insurance. Until significant health care reform occurs, consumers need to be informed and make educated decisions about their health insurance choices.
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