I’d never heard of the guaranteed state coverage. Are many people enrolling in it?
About 250,000 families as of April 2005 had state guaranteed coverage (or about 1 million people). But most were for the whole family instead of for an individual member. And I did research and found that they were all upscale for the most part. Many of them had used their connections, whined and complained about their child and gotten into the state-covered insurance. But they didn’t realize it was there for anyone. The state guaranteed coverage doesn’t advertise.

Why?
I realized that when I interviewed an administrator who said, “Are you going to write about this? If you write about this all these kids who have cancer and diabetes are going to call us and we can’t handle them all.”

Let’s get back to individual health insurance policies. You say they’re better, cheaper and safer for most people than going through an employer. Why?
You can keep the insurance as long as you pay the premium. You don’t lose it if you lose your job. It’s permanent—meaning the price can’t go up for illness. Individual policies offer the same benefits [as employer-sponsored plans] but if you’re in the 90-percent healthy group, you could pay a quarter of the price.

Are there any cases in which an employer-sponsored plan is better?
There are rare cases, but three things must happen: you can’t get individual insurance [you’re in the 10 percent that’s not healthy]; you live in a state that’s terrible for state guaranteed coverage, where it is much more expensive than employer-sponsored coverage; and you are sure that you will work there until some type of permanent insurance kicks in. You’re either in a union or you’re the CEO and you’re near 65 so you know you’ll get Medicare.

Why do so few people purchase individual/family policies?
Well, 14 million Americans have it.

Yes, but that’s still less than 5 percent of the population.
Most people don’t know it exists … And even if they do know it exists, they don’t realize that it’s often half the price. In fact, most people think it’s twice the price—and it used to be. That’s because years ago, they took everybody. But that’s changed. Also employer group insurance used to be much cheaper. And until 2003, a self-employed person couldn’t take a 100-percent deduction for their healthcare expenditures. Now, as of 2005, all employees also can have a 100-percent deduction.

You write that employer sponsored group health insurance will be “mostly eliminated” in the next 20 years. Why?
About 157 million Americans are on employer plans now. Of that, most of them get employer health insurance and are paying twice as much as they should … But you never learn how to buy insurance here. That’s why I wrote this book. This is not new legislation that we need to pass. I am telling you what has already happened. Most Americans don’t know how to purchase individual policies. But if you’re in California, you’ll see billboards all over [the highway] telling you to call this number to enroll because you’ve got 22 carriers vying for your business. I’m telling you, what is happening in California now will be happening everywhere soon.
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