Thursday, November 19, 2009

The 'Bronze' Tier is Dead! Long Live the 'Lead' Tier


It occurs to me that one simple way to get consumers to avoid the crappy Bronze plans would be to rename them. Right now, based on the quality of insurance, plans are either 'Bronze', 'Silver', 'Gold', or 'Platinum'. But "Bronze" means third place, and is most often heard in the context of the Olympics. Third place in the Olympics sounds pretty good! We would be better off naming the top tier Gold, the second tier Silver, and the third tier Bronze.

After that, Congress should rename the the lowest tier of coverage so that it sounds like crappy insurance in addition to being crappy insurance. You could name it the 'Lead' tier, since lead is both a cheap metal and something that's actually bad for your health.

1 comment:

John B. said...

Lead sounds good, as in "Lead will leave you dead." Or it could be something else toxic, like Cadmium or Mercury, or even something radioactive. It could also be one of those unstable rare earth elements that only lasts for a few seconds, just like the high-deductible plans disappear the moment you need them to pay for something.