President’s agenda to impact insurance, financial
markets
President Bush’s recent State of the Union address
outlined three vital themes for the nation’s health
care that could have a significant impact on health insurers
and financial services firms, management consulting firm
DiamondCluster International cautions executives in both
industries.
The three areas of concern for insurance executives,
health care executives and financial services executives
are health insurance portability, health savings accounts
and association plans and broader use of electronic health
care records, notes DiamondCluster’s “Winners
and Losers at Healthcare’s Last Frontier.”
“In 2005 health care spending was 16 percent of
U.S. Gross Domestic Product and that percentage will
only increase as the Baby Boomer generation ages,” said
Patricia O’Brien, M.D., who leads DiamondCluster's
health care industry practice. “While the administration’s
proposals seek to address that problem by making health
care more affordable, they also create challenges and
opportunities that insurers ignore at their own risk.”
Aamer Baig, a partner in DiamondCluster's financial
services practice added: “Financial services firms
are being presented with the opportunity to be in middle
of the health care equation by providing services through
health savings accounts. But while there’s opportunity
there, capturing a profitable position will also require
significant upfront investments in technology and process
improvements.”
“The President’s proposal implies price
controls by forcing insurers to continue to provide coverage,
regardless of whether an individual becomes chronically
ill,” O’Brien noted in the report. “We
would expect the effect of this change to be higher premiums
for group policies. Portability may also increase an
insurer’s administrative costs by changing the
way they manage member records and plan pricing. And
it may well require new technology investment to manage
relationships with members as they move from job to job,
or state to state.”
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