Even though I tend to take a pro-insurance-industry, anti-consumer-advocate-nuttery stance on insurance issues, I must admit that the industry suffers from idiocy when it comes to public or government relations.
Sometimes that idiocy arises from the bullheadedness of one or two players; other times it arises from the myopia of focusing too much on the next public earnings release…or the next round of bonus payouts.
Regardless of its source, that idiocy can, when extended too far, provoke unfortunate reactions from regulators and customers. For example, consider this Reuters article:
More than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third oppose the idea, according to a survey published on Monday.
The survey suggests that opinions have changed substantially since the last survey in 2002 and as the country debates serious changes to the health care system.
Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
The article doesn’t explore possible causes for such opinions, but I can easily imagine that it’s the result of increasing frustration over numbers of uninsured individuals, as well as the multiple and sometimes conflicting hoops that insurers prescribe for claims-handling.
Can you imagine how bad that must appear to medical care providers, if they actually prefer the thought of Medicare/Medicaid for all, rather than private insurance?
Sometimes I wonder if the insurance industry isn’t its own worst enemy….