We have seen it here in the debate over healthcare… almost becoming an article of faith for those on the left: Health Insurance Companies are EVIL… they make obscene profits.

I got a list of the largest insurers:

1. UnitedHealth Group –
2. WellPoint –
3. Aetna –
4. Humana -
5. Cigna -
6. Health Net -
7. Coventry Health Care -
8. Amerigroup -
9. Universal American -
10. Centene -

I then looked up the top three (got tired didn’t want to look at anymore annual reports)

1. UnitedHealth Group – 81,186.0 2,977.0 3.6%
http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/inv...-2009-10-K.pdf

2. WellPoint – 61.579 2.490 4.0%
http://library.corporate-ir.net/libr...Summary_AR.pdf

3. Aetna – 30.950 1.384 4.5%
2008 Aetna Annual Report: Financial Highlights

Aside from what is obscene… do these profits fit that description?

Then there are these:

Microsoft made 29%
IBM made 12%
Apple made 15% (got to get those iPhones and iTunes)
AT&T 10% (got to have service for those iPhones)

Now, maybe one of those extra smart liberal people I keep hearing about can explain all this…

Anyone?

Typically the data they use is in dollars.

Example:
"Last quarter Aetna made $11 million in profits"...jerks!
"Last quarter Aetna escaped with only a 4.5% profit margin, down 3.5% from prior year"

__________________

I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to improve our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.
Wynton Marsalis

This is America. Our economy is based on a free market that allows people to make money. The idea that profits, no matter how much, is obscene is absurd. A free market system is specificaly set up to make profits. Anyone who has a problem with a company making profits in a free market system is a fucking moron.

__________________
"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so." John Stossel quoting some guy.

I'm perfectly fine with companies earning a healthy profit. I am a bit surprised to see such relatively low profit margins for these companies.

OK, so now what? Can anyone explain why our health insurance costs are going up so much? Because otherwise, this is just another case of us all sitting around bitching about the wrong problems.

What is the root cause of our ballooning healthcare costs?

If a ~5% profit is "obscene", then what is an ~18% income tax rate?

Of you're surprised. You're uninformed.

The absence of a free market.

__________________
"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic." - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton April 28th, 2003

Carolina Politics Online

HOPE AND CHANGE

Yep, and yet the Democrats' plan, which all their sheeple are rooting them on for, amounts to an enormous government funded bail out to those very same insurance companies and Obama is pulling the puppet strings.

Idiots.

__________________
"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic." - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton April 28th, 2003

Carolina Politics Online

HOPE AND CHANGE

Because Americans are so unhealthy. Diabetes is epidemic and children are so fat and unhealthy that they we now have a generation of kids that will not outlive their parents.

__________________

Ok, consider me "informed" now.

Care to expand on that? What is "un-free" about our market? Which market are you speanking of? The "medical insurance" market? The "drug company" market? It appears to me that they are free to make a profit (although it is apparently not a high enough profit for some), so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Ah, ok! So for root causes, we now have:

1) The absence of a free market.
2) Because Americans are so unhealthy.

Anyone else want to add to the list?

I'm sticking wth 2. I work in health care. I see the human hogs every day.

__________________

Interesting. In your opinion, why are Americans so unhealthy?

our health overall sux...agreed and yes thats a customer multiplier buts its way deeper than that.

the lack of unfettered competition, I think is one major blocks plus some ancillary ones;tort reform, state access rules, portage, that mccain ( whom I always feel I must add, I DID NOT vote for) was in fact right, as to the mass effect of co's provding HC as a form of untaxed compensation.

And of course, the US gov. Medicare and medicaid are like all gov. org.s were in they set themselves up[ as a market place, employ ponzi schemes to ake the numbers work.

They have now and have been for years lowering payments to doctors hospitals, specialists, anyone in the supply or treatment chain whom uses any, that is any gov. health service and lets remember , 30% of people in the US already utilize OR have available to them, some form of gov. hc. Where do you think those doctors, hospitals equipment manufac.'s, retailers etc. go to make up the cost?


Yup, you and I or anyone that has a plan paid for by a private entity.

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

I think it is a variety of things, and I haven't trended any data lately, so any response I give is a guess.

Fast food

Meciations that cause weight gain and metabolic changes, like Seroquel, which has become a drug of abuse because of it's sedating effects.

Just plain unhealthy lifestyles, too much alcohol, over eating, smoking, etc.

And harking back to my nursing schools days, we simply don't have a healthcare system that uses a 'wellness model.' Health care, rather than being delivered with the long term in mind, we still just deliver sick care. "Nursing for the Promotion of Wellness" was the name of my program. We used Systems Theory as our foundation.

An example I can give you of wellness care is the smoking cesstion emphasis and program in the Veterans Administration. In that system, it is encumbent upon the medical provider to educate, aka nag, the veteran who smokes about the health consequences of smoking. The ourcome has been quite amazing, actually given that nicotine is more addicting that heroine. They use various methods, Chantix, nicotine patches, stop dates, teaching materials, visits with a smoking cessation counselor, etc.

http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/mayo/re..._jama_1988.pdf

But hey, that can't really be a success because it is from a 'government' system. Smoking and Tobacco Use Cessation - Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards

Managed care was supposed to address this by paying providers more when patients did NOT use services (because they didn't NEED them). (Capitation, that's where we are now.) Instead unscrupulous providers just didn't provide the necessary services and absconded with the money.

I've been in this business long enough to know that Americans tend toward the status quo. They are short signted, dig their heels in, and resist change like a sonofabitdh - even if it is positive change!

__________________

and 'television',lets not forget that lovely little box of evil and purveyor of misaligned, sugar flooded teeth and arteriosclerosis.

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...