Insurance Factors – Dennis Wolfe, Healthcare Specialist

 

About Dennis Wolfe

Dennis began his insurance career in 1976 and quickly gravitated to the rapidly developing small group benefits market. Almost immediately he wrote the benefit plan for a large interstate restaurant chain. from there he wrote the benefits for a Fortune 500 company. That followed with a total revamping of a major international law firm that broke precedent for how all independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield state affiliates do business across state lines – in 1998! Dennis wrote in 1986 (published in 1991) his book on true health care cost-delivery reform. It is entitled, “The Sick Solution – A Prescription for National Health”. It foretold of the exact problems that exist today in the health care cost-delivery reform.

 

Interview Transcript of: Insurance Factors – Dennis Wolfe, Healthcare Specialist

 

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Dennis Wolf. Dennis is the author of the book, the sixth solution, and he also runs a company called One 800. We care for you, a healthcare claims consulting firm that has lots of good resources. That is welcome to today’s show.

Dennis
Thank you for having me back.

Alan
So, Dennis, what’s going on out there? And how have people reacted to the Obama care?

Dennis
Yeah, well, I have now nicknamed it affectionately the unaffordable careless act. It is a destructive vehicle that is hurting people everywhere. A recent Gallup poll 64%. And I’m sure that number will be higher at some point. 64% of the people today said that if they knew back then what they now know today about this act, they would have never supported that they would have been on the phones demanding that it not be passed.

Alan
Well, that being the case. And the Congress pays a lot of attention to the polls. Why has anything been done?

Dennis
Well, that’s an interesting question. That’s really a loaded question. Because you had if you recall, if listeners and viewers here will recall, this was passed on to the cover of darkness, literally through budget reconciliation, at the holidays at the Christmas time in 2009. And it was the Democrats clearly had a mission. They’re now paying for that today. Kay Hagan is getting booted out of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu is probably going to lose her seat as a senator and sat in Louisiana, and other senators are also vulnerable all over the country. They weren’t listening to the public, the public was out crying back then they were they were far from pleased with this. But the Democrats weren’t listening, they had an agenda. And that’s really a major statement of why this law is so badly flawed, is it wasn’t discussed, it wasn’t negotiated out. It was just put together and rammed through Congress with no intent at all of caring about what any of the people in this country wanted to say about it.

Alan
So who’s affected the most by the Affordable Health Care Act?

Dennis
Well, there are going to be several groups of people, one, the over 65 group is going to be severely impacted, because they don’t realize how much money was stripped out of Medicare, that it’s been re diverted, to hopefully cover the cost of Medicaid to people who are already on state funded programs. And you’re seeing that through the Medicare Advantage Program, which was a very popular piece of legislation. It passed back in the late 90s. And was very popular all over the country. It’s been wiped out, because it cannot keep up with the reimbursements, the insurance companies can’t afford to offer it. So that group of people are affected. The second that group is affected. The second group of people that is affected by this, I believe are the over 50, who are getting close to retirement. But the high cost of health care now is forcing companies to cut back on employees. You’re seeing early layoffs we’ve seen we’ve seen more people out of work than we’ve ever seen. And yet they need health care. And these are the people that are looking towards retirement with assets that they want to protect. And the way you protect that as you want to make sure your health care costs are covered. They can’t get comprehensive health care. And so they’re in trouble. What about people with pre existing conditions? Interesting question, the group that this was marketed to be the panacea for most, most of all, were those who had preexisting conditions. If you recall, that was what was said all the time, we’re now going to be able to protect these people. They’re finding out two things, one, that the high cost of the care is more than they can afford. And and this is a critical factor. The volume of doctors is 70%, decreased in the state of California alone, who are accepting Obamacare insurance policies. So that means the places where they went for treatment and expected to continue to go, they can’t go. So all of a sudden, yeah, you’ve got a pre existing condition, but you can no longer see Dr. John Doe, you now have to see Dr. John Smith or wherever and you can’t go to the hospital, you have to go to the B hospital. And you can’t also go out of your county you have to stay within your county network of doctors. And maybe they have a doctor at the Mayo Clinic or in San Diego young lady down there who had cancer has treatments up at UCSF here in the Bay Area. She can’t use it anymore. So they’re not they’re not getting any good treatment out of this plus the high cost of prescriptions are going through the roof, the higher the whole concept of low cost prescriptions are being wiped out. So people with pre existing conditions are being hammered.

Alan
Wow. New out of pocket costs have a change.

Dennis
Typical policy and I’ve been in the business almost 40 years doing employee benefits. And I have a background in medical sciences. Typically when I first started you see a policy with a man maximum out of pocket of $1,000. And that slowly crept up to were most common today in the marketplace maximum out of pockets are 5000 $6,000. Now you’re seeing maximum out of pockets on some of these plans that are offered to the exchanges with out of pocket maximums as high as $12,000.

Alan
My visit here today with Dennis with he is a consultant advisor on health care and started the website. 1-800 we care for you

Dennis
We have a wecareforyou.com you can spell it any way you want.

Alan
Dennis, we need to take quick break. We’ll be back right after these messages with more on the Affordable Health Care Act. I love fishing with my family.

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Dennis Wolfe, healthcare consultant and founder of the website one 800 week care for you.com. We’ve been talking about the Affordable Health Care Act and the impact it is having across America. Dennis, how are states reacting to this new legislation.

Dennis
Oregon, for example, our neighbor to the north. They are being investigated for fraud. The person who developed the Oregon website is resigned, immediately resigned and has gone more or less incognito, hiding back here in California. The Oregon State got 58 $59 million. Initially they got 48. And then they got another 11 million. The website doesn’t work it was they created a shell and made it look work made it look like it works, sold it to the federal government and got an early innovator or early Innovator Award. And the website doesn’t work. They’ve enrolled no one in the first two months since they enrolled 59,000,050 9 million in early Innovator Award grant because they did such a great job job developing our website. It doesn’t work. Where’s the money? Good question. And so a lot of people have been enrolled in Medicaid. This is really let me make this very clear to everyone listening and watching this. Obamacare was never designed to work. It was designed to fail. And the reason I say that is because no one’s really buying this. People don’t buy what they don’t understand that they don’t perceive they need or they can afford. If they can’t afford it, they’re not going to buy it. And Obamacare is priced so exorbitantly high. With such a limited number of benefits available with limited access to care. People are frustrated. But if you’re on welfare, or if you’re on a state welfare program, be it at the state level or the county level. Obamacare is wonderful because now the states are shifting all the dollars to the federal government to pick up the cost of it, but ultimately comes out of our personal tax dollars. Colorado’s executive director that set up the Colorado exchange is under investigation for felony fraud in Montana from some prior convictions. Navigators are being arrested because they’re either illegal aliens, there’s no background credit checks, there’s nothing being done. One navigator was arrested for for conviction on identity theft. These people are in control of your personal information. Belarus, Russia, the known hangout for the Russian mafia and the Russian hackers were the company in the country that received the contracts to CGI, the Canadian company that we spent $634 million to develop the website subcontracted to the Belarus Russian mafia, so you no longer have to worry if your identity is going to be hacked. When you go into healthcare.gov. There’s no worry anymore. Now, you know, it’s just absurd.

Alan
I just sent California recently took down their website on online health

Dennis
They took down two things one the access to doctors because nobody’s participating. And to they took down the online exchange for small businesses, because it’s not working properly, either. You can’t go on and getting information. So get to the referring back to back to agents to work with it. And I have issued on my website, a boycott letter for all agents not to get anywhere near this, because you’re going to be sued for misrepresentation.

Alan
So what’s the way how the mess that well with this?

Dennis
It’s funny. 22 years ago, I wrote my book. I mean, I published it in 1991. So 23 years ago, and it was ignored back then. And and now I realize why it was ignored back then because it’s needed today. The book talks about changing the structure and looking at health insurance as the commodity that it is in the way we render care in this country. And what’s happened is we’ve gone from a country that renders care to a country that health care is business.

Alan
And visiting here today with Dennis Wolfe. He’s a healthcare claims consultant started the website, one 800. We care for you.com wrote a book in the early 90s. The six solution is the National Prescription for health care and dentists. We need to take a quick break. We’ll be right back after these messages with more on the Affordable Care Act and the impact it’s having on the individual lives.

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Dennis Wolfe. We’ve been talking about the Affordable Health Care Act. And the impact has had an individual lives. There’s not a lot of good news out there on this. But here’s the question. Why haven’t they repealed this act?

Dennis
We have a do nothing Congress pure and simple. John Boehner and the Republicans are still searching for the spine that they need to stand up to this President. We have an executive branch that’s ruling by Fiat now, which is dictatorial, of the very fact that the he’s directed the IRS to prosecute criminally anybody who lays off employees because they can’t cover the high cost of Obamacare is a real major statement of concern should be for everyone in this country, who is here to tell businesses where they have to cut expenses. It’s not up to the business owner. So this is why this act is so dangerous. It’s not about health care. As I said in the very opening segment, it’s about controlling people’s lives.

Alan
Now, you wrote a book on health care called the sixth solution, a prescription for national health day years ago. In fact, do you have yours prophesied that we will be coming to terms where we’d have to have a solid solution to fix the healthcare?

Dennis
Well, in this country, mathematics, always, always tell the truth, you can’t lie, you can use statistics to lie. But you can’t lie about results, the numbers are there. And the healthcare industry as a monopolistic system of delivery, has no management over the cost controls. So eventually, those costs creep out of sight. And when you have double digit inflation of substantial double digits, not 10 and 11%, but 15 to 20%. And you use the rule of 72. In the finance world, money’s doubling by the factor of that interest rate divided into 72. So if you have money growing at 18%, in terms of inflation, that means the cost is doubling every four years, four times 18 is 72, when society has historically grown at about 4.66%, inflation, 5%. And you divide that into 17, then the rest of society is doubling every 14 years, roughly. So when you look at that you cannot argue with those numbers. So at some point, the dam was going to break. And that’s what I saw back in 1986. That’s my degree is in finance. So I looked at this, and I said, you know, there has to be a better delivery system. And so what I did was I came up with a system that got rid of health insurance as a primary payer, and even as a secondary payer, but put it in a tertiary position. And when you look at that, then that means well, whose primary, and my book, the primary payer is the individual, but it’s done at the local level, it’s too complicated and the time we have here to go into it. But essentially, I can summarize the book in three words, you regionalize with accountability, you put the control of the health care directly into the hands of the people within a region. And today with a computer technology we have the laughter page on my website has a list of every single hospital in this country, it’s not heard hard to put the demographics and divide the country into regions where you can create micro economic climates and have direct accountability between the health care providers and the people who live in that region. And both are accountable to each other. When you do that, you change the you change the entire paradigm of the delivery system in this country, and you get the federal government out of it, except to become the subsidizer for the people who can’t afford the cost in that region. But accountability means at some point, they’re gonna owe that money back or somehow pay that off. That’s Medicare manufactured by this law. Well, as I said before, there’s been about a trillion I didn’t say the dollar amount, but it’s about a trillion dollars has been some subversively cut out of Medicare. We’re already seeing the impact with the loss of the Medicare Advantage Program. So seniors are going to find themselves more having more difficulty accessing doctors. I’ll give a perfect example. Many people people know me know my wife had a stroke three years ago, and she monitors With a dark cardiologist, one of her doctors she sees every three months, we were not able to make the appointment earlier this month. And that was on February the fourth, you know, when the next appointment is March the 10th. That’s the earliest we could get into see him because his space is so limited on how they can take and how they can take patients who are on Medicare.

Alan
So it’s all the baby boomers retiring and big problem ending in the Medicare Yeah, how Yeah, what’s going to happen?

Dennis
Well, the way this country is going with the consistent amount of overspending and piling on of debt, we’re spending ourselves into oblivion. And I’ve said over and over on on other shows that I’ve been on, we are looking at a complete meltdown of the middle class in this country, it’s unraveling as fast as you can say the words, and you’re seeing more of the baby boomers that are piling on more debt, when they should be de leveraging and started looking at how to protect their assets. And with the cuts in the health care services, and the high cost of the health care insurance premiums, they’re not gonna be able to get care. So you could see some dramatic health changes in the older population and people not living as long I think the quality of life is going to be significantly reduced.

Alan
You know, as you as you look out there into the crystal ball to three years into the future, what do you see happening?

Dennis
If we do not correct this, I see chaotic system of health care, one that President Obama really wants to see happen happen and drop down into, because he will ultimately be able to create a single payer system and get rid of the insurance companies altogether. People don’t understand how insurance companies work. They’re not the evil being. Look around. You look at every major city, the buildings are all funded by MetLife, Prudential New York Life, et cetera, et cetera. And all that money that mortgage money will dry up. It has a dramatic trickle down impact on the economy of this country, insurance companies move this country. And if you wipe them out, you take you take the economy down with it. And I think that’s his goal. And that’s my concern. I’m just being blunt about it.

Alan
So you said really, it has nothing to do about health care, but it has to do back control,

Dennis
Control the country if you can fractionalize and divide the country. And you can implement all these programs and overwhelm people, if people are tired of this. They’re really tired of it. And now we have to put up with this for three more years because he’s never going to sign anything that’s going to repeal this.

Alan
Is there. Is there a place that a person could put themselves to make him in a better position with this health care? System?

Dennis
I honestly don’t know the answer to that. At this point. You’re victimized either way. If you don’t enroll, you’re penalized because the Supreme Court said it’s a tax. So you have to buy something, you have to get health care. And the insurance companies rates are so high, no one could afford it. So I think it’s it’s coming to a point where it’s gonna become a calamitous event. You know,

Alan
Dennis, if a person needs more information on health care and what’s out there? Well, they do.

Dennis
I would recommend they visit our website. We’re seeing a huge impact of people that register it’s a free website, there is a glossary, it’s a interactive website, people can go to laughter We always heard laughter is the best medicine. In our case laughter means learn and understand your website again, one 100 We care for you.com and you can spell it any way you want. With a four FLR with a you while you wait for them to contact you off that website they can contact me directly they can register the registration is free. They go through all the website and they can interact with us and and help build our network around the country.

Alan
Have been visiting here today with Dennis Wolfe healthcare claims consultant, founder of the website, one 800. We care for you and author the sixth solution but Dennis, thanks for being on today’s show.

Dennis
I’m glad to be here.

Alan
We’ll be right back after these messages.

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

Alan Olsen, is the Host of the American Dreams Show and the Managing Partner of GROCO.com.  GROCO is a premier family office and tax advisory firm located in the San Francisco Bay area serving clients all over the world.

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