I'm still deeply skeptical of anyone who makes any confident statements about how the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) insurance rules and exchange plans have done or will do.
PPACA World seems like a mess, but, of course, the numbers available for the exchange and non-exchange commercial health insurance, government health plan and uninsured charity care markets are also a mess.
One thing I do know about PPACA World is this: Trying to cover it vacuums away a lot of energy I could otherwise devote to disability insurance.
If you end up living in dire poverty because of medical bills, that's terrible.
If doctors save your life, and you still end up living in dire poverty, because you are no longer able to work, that's also really just as terrible.
Society pays less attention to that risk, because the utility companies, grocers and landlords that dun people with disabilities are less vocal about the money they lose due to lack of income protection than doctors and hospitals are about the money they lose due to lack of medical insurance, but dire poverty is dire poverty.
The Hartford (NYSE:HIG) is an example of one of the companies in the disability insurance market that's trying to patiently plug away at promoting disability insurance and the value of helping people with disabilities return to work.
