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(image: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital)
It is another year for record profits for the health insurance industry. From the New York Times:
The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.
The UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest commercial insurers, told analysts that so far this year, insured hospital stays actually decreased in some instances. In reporting its earnings last week, Cigna, another insurer, talked about the “low level” of medical use.
Yet the companies continue to press for higher premiums, even though their reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with new dividends. Many defend proposed double-digit increases in the rates they charge, citing a need for protection against any sudden uptick in demand once people have more money to spend on their health, as well as the rising price of care.
This self-feeding cycle is one fantastic racket. The for-profit insurance companies have unnecessarily raised premiums and deductibles so much that regular people are unable to afford actually using the coverage they have. And, at the same time, the insurance companies have the chutzpah to use the fact that people can’t afford to use their insurance to justify even bigger premium hikes. That, of course, will make it even harder for people to afford to use their insurance.
Of course, the insurance companies are trying to defend their profits by claiming their profit margins aren’t that high, but that is nonsense. Unlike industries that produce things or services with added value, the insurance business adds no value. At its core, it just collectively holds people’s money until it is needed. Any “profit” is just money the companies skim from these collective holdings. Given that the government directly subsidizes almost all of the billions spent on health insurance in the country, there is zero justification for allowing the health insurance companies to make any profits at all. Of course, that is why almost every other developed country doesn’t allow companies to make a profit off of basic health insurance.
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To the insurance companies this is a “productivity increase”. The money goes in but it doesn’t come out…
Google News “Aetna rate decrease” and see what pops up under “did you mean?”
Aetna is lowering rates for a few people in CT as a massive, cheap PR gesture.
sounds like a classic move.
I guess the sweet spot is price discrimination — client-by-client — to take every last dollar we can afford for health insurance — with a deductible so high we can’t afford to use it.
Ah, the magic of the profit motive.
I don’t think the AMA will be too happy with this. If patients don’t show up, doctors don’t get paid. When I mention health insurance, my doctor snarls. If people just die instead of going to the doctor, who will pay for their next yacht?
And why not raise their rates even higher after record profits???
This is what happens in an industry with an anti-trust exemption. They can fix their prices whereever they like, collectively, LEGALLY. And then the Democrats MANDATED that we all become customers of an industry… WITH AN ANTI-TRUST Exemption.
Brilliant.
If those Democrats aren’t EXTREMELY well compensated after they leave office, then they should be upset. They’ve earned multi-billions for the health insurance industry, so they should feel entitled to multi-millions for their efforts, shouldn’t they??? Wonder if the Republicans are now worried about the fact that NONE of them voted for this mandate for an industry with an anti-trust exemption.
Of course, had George W. Bush introduced this EXACT same bill in 2005, every Republican would’ve voted for it (along with a good 20-30 percent of Democrats) while most Democrats would’ve howled and complained about such a thing.
When oh when will all of you folks still stuck in the red versus blue team wars wake up and realize it’s just as fake as the “wrestling” of the WWF?
Physicians, in my opinion, should have long ago banded together against the excesses of the insurance industry. They are the ones who took the oath, not the criminal insurers. Their voices would carry a tremendous amount of weight. Unfortunately, quite a few of them are right wingers, in it for the money or both.
It’s a racket all right and the U.S. public are played for chumps but then the thought of single payer is just too scary. Socialism and all that. The public are well trained dogs.
Well, then doctors need to “man up” — put on their “man pants” — and demand a single-payer system. In a fight with big insurance, doctors win…easily. Too many doctors claim to “hate insurers,” but then they love the fee-for-service system that lets them bill big money for little things.
It’s time for doctors to put up or shut up on single payer.
Agreed — thank you!
Let me be the first on this thread to call them fuckers. Fuckers.
Am I going to get flagged for that? Wait, where’s the lil flag?
Of course the Democrats, along with Obama, would have voted for a GWB bill, in the spirit of bipartisanship, don’t ya know.
Had a friend that worked at the Cleveland Clinic, a PT. A group of visiting physicians from Austria were touring the facility and they were stunned at the motivation of U.S. physicians. They indicated that in Austria, as in just about all of Europe physicians were motivated by helping their fellow citizens not in amassing wealth alone.
I second that emotions they are all in it for the FUCKING money and not what is needed HEALTH CARE that any patient can afford. I don’t care how ya fucking do it but every living breathing person in Our country deserves complete comprehensive Fcuking “Health Care”! We sure as hell don’t need to have no Fucking “Health Insurance” who’s only function is to suck the money out of Health Care. Now if you can up with another one I would be open to listen. In my book they do nothing but limit Health Care in the name of Fucking PROFIT!
yep. How quaint.
x2
Yes, health care should be a right, it is a basic human right according to the UN I believe, and it should be a right here.
And every person should be able to receive comprehensive (medical, dental, eye, mental, nursing home, whatever relates to HEALTH) care free or nearly free at point of service and paid collectively through PROGRESSIVE taxes.
And the dimwitted opponents will howl at how “high” the taxes would be in such a situation yet say nothing about shovelling even more money at the insurance corporations where a great deal of it is skimmed in the form of profit. Assholes.
Edited for clarity…
Perfectly edited.
Thank you.
bitter shern
My insurance company wasn’t covering $500 of the treatment I needed, about the same time they raised my rates to $1,000 a month, for me alone.
So I dropped the insurance company and paid for my healthcare out of pocket.
Screw you, fuckers.
By the way, I’ve heard from several doctors with general practices who are going bankrupt: patients can’t even afford the co-pays.
Not that I feel sorry for the doctors — they fought “socialized medicine” for decades on end, in order to feather their own nests.
And so they got privatized health insurance, where they’re also getting screwed.
In addition to the low reimbursements, refusing to allow the doctors to treat the patients, the insurance companies can take six months to a year to pay off.
http://madashelldoctors.com/donate/
Some physicians are working hard!
These are the people Obama sold his presidency too and was angry when we didn’t clap louder.
I have to laugh at all the comments. Your anger or whatever you’re expressing is so misplaced. obama is the one who sold out. I remember a group of doctors, including Dr. Flowers, showing up at the hearings led by max baucus, championing single payer. They were arrested. Also, a large group of doctors toured the U.S. advocating for single payer. Then we have obama saying single payer was off the table and then cynically pretended to be for the watered down public option while he traded it away behind closed doors. Sure, the AMA and AARP are complicit, but the person who really screwed the american people is obama.
But it wasn’t just Obama. It was also the Democratic Party that had HUGE majorities in BOTH Houses of Congress that screwed the American People.
Obama couldn’t pass any law, including the Health Insurance Profit Protection Act (HIPPA), without the Democrats in Congress.
I don’t understand how you can say we’ve misplaced our anger while saying Obama alone is to blame. IMO there’s no way possible Obama alone can be to blame.
“obama is the one who sold out”
It takes a village to pass corrupt legislation.
IMO, obama is exactly who I blame.
Link.
The insurance industry has a medical loss ratio currently of more than 20% which means less than 80% goes to the customers. In 1993 it was 5%. I think the first thing one should ask the insurance industry should be, “Why is your industry 4 times less effective today at delivering care, than it was in 1993?”
Every time Obama moves his mouth and praise for his shitty “reform” comes out, Americans will know the truth of this situation: nothing was done to rein in the profit-grabbing a$$holes, while their profits just keeping going up and up.
I pay more in premiums this year than last year. Recently, they denied coverage on two medications that my doctor prescribed for me. Now I’ve asked the doctor to communicate the need to the thieves, but their next step has been to wait silently and see if I go away.
F*cking a@@holes.
Thanks, Obama, for throwing away the opportunity to bring some real change. You suck.
Clinton’s “third way” so-called centrism (i.e. corporatism).
Bush’s neoconservatism (i.e. corporatism).
Obama’s neoconservatism dressed up as liberalism (i.e. assholish corporatism).
I understand. Obama and his damn bipartisanship nonsense allowed the GOP to frame the whole health care debate, giving them leverage to force the Dems to make far too many compromises. But I do think Congress deserve their fair share of the blame.
But yeah, Obama was critical to undermining the power of the Dems’ majorities in Congress.
Health insurance is a classic monopoly racket. Insurers have spent decades gaming state regulators, to the point that they are toothless, and they’re buying off the feds, allowing them to raise rates and continue their reprehensible practice.
The reality is they are using Jeff Skilling’s Enron business model: they will do whatever they can to make large profits, legal or not, and keep doing it until the government notices, physically stops them, fines them far in excess of any profits made, collects those fines, and threatens to do it again if the behavior doesn’t cease and desist.
Since 2000, the bet that government hasn’t the balls to do any of those things has paid off handsomely. Which means insurers will keep on repeating their behavior until the government grows a pair and acts like a government instead of a profit subsidizer. Who wants to hold their breadth until Mr. Obama tells his people to do that, hmmm?
I agree with karenb – only Obama, in the end, prevented the public option.
Only Obama, in the beginning, prevented consideration of single payer.
When it was known we had the 50 Senators for public option via budget reconciliation, Obama went to the wall to kill it. It is all about Obama – and only Obama – which makes Obama’s current ploy – saying change is difficult – really poring salt on the wound.
Hey. Chill. Sometime in 3047, when ACA kicks in, we’ll all be in health care heaven. And we’ll have O to thank for it.
The death panels are alive and well and they are called Health Insurance Companies, and they are monopolies, thanks to Obama.
“In a stunning turn around, insurance giant CIGNA has capitulated to community demands, and protests that the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee helped to generate, and agreed to a critically needed liver transplant for Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old girl in the intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Center. Unfortunately, Nataline passed away yesterday just after six o’clock the same day of the massive protest.
Submitted by Colette Washing… on December 22, 2007 – 3:15pm
She was denied because the Insurance company claimed that liver transplants were “experimental”. The irony is they do 6,000 liver transplants a year and have been doing them for 50 years. This case is not isolated.
Obama prevented the public option before it even came up for a debate. He folded and thanks to him, seniors will probably be trying to buy non-existent health care from these very same death panels. You think they are going to sell seniors insurance if the government gives them $8,000 or even $15,000? Health insurance is currently $30,000 a year, which is more than 1/2 of America earns, before taxes. They will be killing seniors left and right.
By the way, the insurance company met with the parents and as a parting gesture, one of their employees shot them the bird! Nice huh?
Yeah “change is difficult” when you’re a lying corporate shill and Wall Street puppet.
If I said what I’d like to happen to every last insurance exec would I be banned from the site?
I think the insurers and the wall street bankers are trying to incite a bloody end to capialism throug their king louis-esque abuses