On the Third Hand: Help

Advocates of a pure, or nearly pure, free-market approach may well prove to be correct when they say that government intervention eventually distorts health care markets and makes the situation worse than if patients and providers were left to work out their own deals. But most people, including many people, who, in theory, prefer a pure free-market approach hate to leave other people to die of a treatable health problem on the sidewalk. Some of the earliest written records we have relate to efforts by societies, such as ancient Egypt, to organize and pay for health care.

Similarly, it’s possible that most of us feel such a sense of deep pity for seriously ill people battling health care bureaucracy that, one way or another, we’ll have to find someone to help them navigate through the health care and health finance systems. Maybe we don’t want children to die of measles simply because their parents have no idea where to get their children vaccinated at no out-of-pocket cost.

One possible solution: If we generally do treat access to some level of health system navigation help as a basic human right, and society as a whole or specific tender-hearted people will have to bear the burden of paying for those services if healthy, solvent people fail to pay for navigation services, then become sick, maybe the PPACA system, or whatever comes after the PPACA system, should require any health plan to spend a minimum dollar amount, or minimum percentage of health care claims costs, on pre-enrollment and post-enrollment support services.

Maybe some entity could even create what amounts a health insurance helper exchange program within the health insurance exchange system, and let agents, brick-and-mortar brokers, direct insurance company enrollment systems, nonprofit exchange helpers, Web broker entities, and Chinese health insurance system hackers who are feeling generous compete for a share of the helper business. Maybe the entity could set the same level of compensation for all would-be insurance helpers, then have the helpers compete for business based on ability to improve patients’ satisfaction with plan customer service and access to care, rather than on compensation level.

On the third hand, there is the possibility, given how opaque the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made many aspects of the exchange program and overall commercial health insurance market regulation, that HHS would just as soon consumers not understand how the system works.

See also: The opacity of nope

In which case, never mind.