Health insurance and hospitals used to generally be both nonprofit. Then regulations slowly changed allowing profit. But you’re correct, insurance is not our friend because of profits, same concept that Human Resources is not for the employees as much as protection for the company/government.
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I retired after 23 years of working for a privately owned, "not-for profit" healthplan that is still a private, "not-for profit". Our mission statement began with "Take the tyranny out of healthcare"... In casual conversations with acquaintences when I
did mention who I worked for, I almost universally I heard, "Oh they really took care of us when [
husband, child... needed expensive healthcare urgently]".
Employees are paid a living wage but nothing like Boeing and many other large corporations. Like other companies they did away with the defined benefits (pension) plan, fortunately after I was vested but my wife and I made the decision to contribute to the 401K even though we were a one income family, so my wife could be at home to raise our son. Both of us grew up in lower income families so we lived frugally, yet felt "comfortable", and are still Thankful. The company contributed towards employee healthcare but the employee "contribution" was higher and the plans had higher copays than what many;
possibly most of our corporate members had to pay. The company was required by regulations to have a number of month's worth of reserves to pay the current rate of claims with ZERO dollars coming in. The current and projected upcoming annual operating budget was "
absolute". The fiscal year was January through December, and that often meant EOY was draconian for workforce reductions.
I thought IT was
incredibly brutal.
and being a "survivor" felt like this for me
I don't miss that at all!
A major focus of my final 7 years in IT was particularly aimed at keeping physical and virtual IT
software-hardware assets expenditures as low as possible for members
through efficient use of the existing budget, as well as regulatory compliance. Some managers and directors were not happy with me but I was a direct report to the VP of Operations who appreciated my function, ethics, and results.
One of the strategies for the not-for profits to compete with Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM)
owned for-profits that might be able to absorb an operating loss is "plan affilliation"; a type of merger, to gain economy of scale for overhead costs like IT, HR, facilities management... while keeping each plan's core business tailored and focused on the local member markets. Being in one of those shared functions adds to the stress I mentioned above.
As
@Fourbtgait 's quoted article says:
It is an "old fashioned noble-minded" business model. Unfortunately it isn't perfect. I was and remain proud I could be a part of it.
