Health Insurers Break Profit Records As 2.7 Million Americans Lose Coverage

[RedEarth]

Health Insurers Break Profit Records As 2.7 Million Americans Lose Coverage

Health Care for America Now!
February 2010

The five largest U.S. health insurance companies sailed through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression to set new industry profit records in 2009, a feat accomplished by leaving behind 2.7 million Americans who had been in private health plans. For customers who kept their benefits, the insurers raised rates and cost-sharing, and cut the share of premiums spent on medical care.

Executives and shareholders of the five biggest for-profit health insurers, UnitedHealth Group Inc., WellPoint Inc., Aetna Inc., Humana Inc., and Cigna Corp., enjoyed combined profit of $12.2 billion in 2009, up 56 percent from the previous year. It was the best year ever for Big Insurance.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2010/february/profits-for-largest-insurers-now-30

[jtrockville]

1. That's how the free market is designed to work.

Companies aren't in business to provide service. They're in business to make money. Providing care to sick people is NOT in the best interest of a health insurance company.

[happy_liberal]

2. exactly-they make money not providing health care

which is why real health care should be non profit

[jtrockville]

3. Why this isn't abundantly clear to everyone?

It's so simple, we shouldn't even need to discuss it.

[happy_liberal]

5. "What luck for the rulers that men do not think"

n/t

[happy_liberal]

4. just reading this at huffingtonpost...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/17/most-outrageous-examples_n_464984.html

The Most Outrageous Examples Of Health Insurers Denying Coverage

...even those who believe they're fully insured may not be as protected as they hope. Recurring examples of insurers digging up and scrutinizing customers' old records after they get sick suggest perverse incentives for companies to dump their customers once they fall ill. Some insurance companies have even been found to award bonuses and better performance reviews to employees who revoke the most policies....


After 17-year-old college student Jerome Mitchell tested positive for HIV in 2002, his health insurance company retroactively annulled his coverage. Fortis Insurance claimed that a nurse's note written before his coverage began may have indicated that Mitchell had already known he had contracted HIV. The note turned out to be an error, and earlier this year, the South Carolina Supreme Court called the company's behavior "reprehensible" and ordered it to pay Mitchell $10 million in damages.

[happy_liberal]

6. Rape is a preexisting condition?!

"In 2002, Chris Turner, a health insurance agent from Tampa, Florida, was drugged and raped during a business trip. A few months later, when Turner was forced to buy new insurance on the individual market, she called a series of insurance underwriters and asked them about a hypothetical client who had been treated for rape. Every insurer she called had the same response: “Nope, we won’t take her.” Her rape, Turner said, had become a pre-existing condition, and she no longer qualified for coverage."


So now people shouldn't report rape or they won't get health coverage??!!

[slipslidingaway]

7. Comment By Don McCanne, MD ...

"...The non-weighted average of their medical loss ratios for 2009 is 82.8%. That means that 82.8% of revenues go into the "trust funds," and 17.2% is retained for their administrative and other business expenses plus their profits.

"These five companies had combined revenues of $232 billion. Of that, $192 billion went into the "trust funds," and $40 billion went into their business operations and profits. Their combined profit was $12.2 billion. That $12.2 billion profit out of the $40 billion that they retained for their business expenses means that their actual profit averaged over 30%. Over 30%! No other industry has returns anywhere near this level.

...Some in the policy community say that eliminating profits of the private insurers won't save enough to make a difference. But they miss the point. First, that $12.2 billion would provide for quite a bit of health care. But a far greater amount could be recovered by eliminating the administrative excesses of the insurers and the costs of the administrative burden that they place on physicians and hospitals.

But the most important reason is not even quantified. This intrusive industry has taken away our choices in health care by assessing heavy penalties for care provided outside of their restrictive networks, while putting in place numerous barriers to the health care that we need. Why do we reward these despicable people so richly for their unseemly, heinous acts?

We want a system that helps us get health care that we need, like Medicare, not one that impedes our access to care as they pick our pockets and snatch our purses."

[happy_liberal]

8. kick

:kick:

[classysassy]

9. Every congressman

that voted against health care should be kicked out of office.Those greedy bastards take money from health care providers,a group that are making outragious profits and all the congresscritters care about is your vote suckers.