The Editor\'s Edge

Adieu, Part II

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:12:27 +0000

As I wrote in the previous entry, I will be retiring as of April 30 and wanted to say good-bye to the industry in two parts. The first part of this farewell dealt with some general observations. This part will deal with some of the people it’s been my privilege to know and work with over [...]

Adieu, Part 1

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:16:34 +0000

Come the end of April, I will be retiring after 30 years with National Underwriter. (And yes, Virginia, it is a voluntary retirement, thank you.) So, this will be one of my last pieces as NU Life & Health’s Editor-in-Chief and the first of two parts of a farewell to the business I’ve been fortunate to [...]

Pre-existing Conditions

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:08:40 +0000

What is it about this business? A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece called ‘Tone Deaf,’ which spoke to the health insurance industry’s propensity for shooting itself in the foot, with ever more powerful weapons as time goes on. That was before the health care reform bill was enacted into law. But no sooner had the bill [...]

Yes!

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:09:37 +0000

There doesn’t seem to be any point in my pretending not to be thrilled by the historic House vote that sent health care reform legislation to President Obama. The victory is even more astounding when you consider that just a few short weeks ago health care reform was being pronounced dead upon the election of [...]

No Joke

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:36:59 +0000

It’s obvious from the fight that’s going on in Congress over whether to even form a Consumer Protection Agency and where to put it that American consumers have a major problem: Namely, that collectively they don’t have even one pocket deep enough for Congress to fit in. This is in stark contrast to the banking industry’s [...]

Tone Deaf

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:11 +0000

What, you might ask yourself, would cause a health insurance company coming off a quarter where it had multi-billion dollar profits to slam individual policyholders with rate increases up to 39%? Well, let’s see. Maybe the insurer is headquartered on Mars and is unaware that a debate to reform the health care system has been raging in [...]

Dirty Little Secret

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:17:23 +0000

I was originally going to headline this piece “Run, Sarah, Run.” But then I realized what a joke it was—and a one-liner at that—so I had to turn to something else to fill the space. And then I thought: How about the American Council of Life Insurance’s February 3 statement regarding life settlement securitizations, which uses the [...]

Dodd Dodders

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:45:35 +0000

By this time we all know how very very difficult it is to get anything done in the U.S. Senate, so it is not surprising that Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., was upset about President Obama’s proposals regarding banks—what businesses they can or cannot be in under certain conditions and how big they should be. One can [...]

Not A Peep

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:29:39 +0000

Funny how one election has thrown everything up in the air. Of course I’m talking about the election of Scott Brown as the Republican senator from the bluest of states, Massachusetts, on January 19. The result has been that Democrats of all stripes are running scared, while Republicans can’t stop crowing about the renewed vigor that [...]

Dear President Obama…

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:43:52 +0000

I know you are probably getting tons of advice from all corners about what you should do now in the aftermath of the upset election of Scott Brown, a Republican, as a senator in the bluest of states, Massachusetts. You, and we, are hearing from the punditocracy that it was a repudiation of your overreaching agenda, [...]