Confessions of a former health insurance agent: You have to be for Barack Obama’s public option
By Rob Piccirillo
PoHo contributor
It may be a surprise to most people who know me that I used to own an insurance agency. That’s right! I, Rob Piccirillo, for a period of about one year and seven months, owned and operated a Florida Insurance Agency, which specialized in selling private health insurance.
My company sold various forms of private insurance, but our bread and butter was Medicare Advantage. Medicare Advantage is a private option that beneficiaries may select instead of Original Medicare (parts A & B), which is provided by the federal government.
I will tell you now, and may the Lord Almighty strike me dead if this is not so: Sometimes it was hard to sleep at night knowing the disservice many in the industry, my cohorts, perhaps even those in my own company had done to many people on many occasions. And although the money I made got me the necessary REMs, the moral question made me quit the business! (That’s why I’m here writing this blog. Do you think the owner of a successful insurance agency would bother scribbling a Political Whore post? Negatory…)
Anyway, the fact of the matter is this: I received a bird’s eye view of what goes on in the health insurance industry. Read the rest of this entry »
