A view of Kansas City, Missouri's Union Station (Photo: TS)
Members of the National Association of Health Underwriters may tend to have mixed feelings about government involvement in health insurance, but they're happy they can still sell Medicare supplement and Medicare Advantage plans.
The growing role of the Medicare plan market as a storm shelter for health insurance agents has helped shape NAHU 2018 annual convention.
NAHU, a group that represents about 100,000 health insurance agents and brokers, started its 88th annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri, on Saturday.
(Related: NAHU to Expand Medicare Plan Efforts)
Kansas City straddles the line between Kansas and Missouri. It has its own nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan. A nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield serves the rest of Kansas, and a unit of Anthem Inc. has the Blue Cross and Blue Shield marks for the rest of Missouri. Many other carrier have traditionally competed hard for major medical business there.
The overview agenda for the four-day event shows a total of six sponsored meals and parties prominent enough for their sponsors to show up in the agenda. One sign of the turmoil in the major medical market is that Pan-American Life, which offers a supplemental employee health benefits program, is the only carrier serving as the sponsor for one of those six events.
The only breakout session speaker affiliated with an insurer appears to be Henry Vazquez, national director of Medicare supplements at Torchmark Corp.
This year, NAHU is offering on session on long-term care insurance and related products, along with an entire breakout session track on private Medicare plans.
The Medicare track includes a legislative update session and a session on the Medicare Programs of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) program. The PACE program offers what amounts to a package of Medicare-based long-term care benefits for people who already need long-term care: comprehensive Medicare benefits, including home care benefits, designed for people who live in the community and have enough health problems to qualify for Medicaid nursing home benefits.
