Political Discussion about Healthcare Reform Law

[JagFan07]

Is 2.2% an obscene profit?

Where does 2.2% come from?  The numbers for 2009 are
Aetna: 3.7%
Wellpoint: 7.3%
Cigna: 7.1%
United Health: 3.7%
Humana: 3.4%
Healthspring: 5.0%
Coventry Health Care: 2.3%
United American Corp: 2.7%
Unum Group: 8.4%

Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo?

Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry.

In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."

Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=8910507

[Tripoli1711]

Finehoe-

In your emotion you are completely twisting logic.

First, Paulson wasn't saying that he was going to go out and slaughter.  He wasn't threatening to let your blood.  Sun Trust wasn't threatening to let my blood.  He was telling them that if the system totally collapsed, and we ended up in a state much worse than the Great Depression, that there would be mass chaos, blood and perhaps the need for martial law.

Was this an intentional overstatement meant to help his cronies?  Perhaps.  Was it an honest belief that turned out to be hyperbole?  Perhaps.  Was he actually right, and we don't know it?  Perhaps.

The fact remains:  No Bank Ever Threatened To Take To The Streets And Start Killing People.

As to Sun Trust taking my money... you have a very bizarre way of looking at confiscation. 

The government paid them money.  As such, they received money that the GOVERNMENT confiscated from me.  Whether I agree with the government's decision is meaningless on this point:  Sun Trust doesn't have the power to confiscate money from me.  Only government does.  You cannot claim that the banks took that money from me by force.

[finehoe]

No Bank Ever Threatened To Take To The Streets And Start Killing People.

But having a mandate to purchase insurance is government forcing you to do something "at the point of a gun".  It would seem I'm not the only one emotional.

[Sportmotor]

If you want to drive in this country YOU NEED CAR INSURANCE
If you want to live in this country YOU NEED HEALTH INSURANCE.

So no car insurance then we fine you then later if done again take you to jail
No health insurance we fine you, then later kill you if done again...


>_>

[NotNow]

My failure to have insurance doesn't have the potential to directly impact the rights and property of others.

Oh, but it does.  If you're involved in a car wreck and are taken to the emergency room, they must treat you.  And if you don't have insurance, who do you think pays?  The people who DO have insurance, so it does direct impact others.

So why don't you fine that guy instead of me?

[JeffreyS]

The technical aspect of this is it is a tax with ways to be exempt. You have as much choice as you do with any tax.

[Sportmotor]

My failure to have insurance doesn't have the potential to directly impact the rights and property of others.

Oh, but it does.  If you're involved in a car wreck and are taken to the emergency room, they must treat you.  And if you don't have insurance, who do you think pays?  The people who DO have insurance, so it does direct impact others.

So why don't you fine that guy instead of me?

becuase that would make since

[Tripoli1711]

What part of my statement is inaccurate, finehoe?

If you refuse to pay, you could be jailed.  If they come to take you to jail and you refuse to go, they make you go.

How do they do that?  At the point of a gun, or the very least a taser.

Government is the only entity who can do that.  Private corporations cannot.

[finehoe]

Refuse to pay your share of our tax dollars going to pay AIG bonuses and see if the result is any different. 

[buckethead]

The mandate is actually a tax that you are exempted from if you have insurance. Technically it is not a mandate and it is a tax on the poor, middle class and rich.  note the "mandate" tax is not intended to ever be paid subsidized out for some exempted for others.

Technicality to be sure. A rose by any other name...

[buckethead]

I dont think thats an apples to apples comparison.

The issue is insurance that you are compelled to purchase.

Like Car Insurance and Health Insurance.

Why don't you object to the Car Insurance requirement?

You are NOT compelled to buy car insurance.

[buckethead]

Mandate is just a buzz word it is a tax. The government can tax you. Now they have given us a way to opt out of the tax but it is a choice. I know both sides have called it a mandate but the legislation calls it a tax.

It is a mandate, buzz word or not. If you fail to comply with the mandate, you pay a fine... errr... tax. If you fail to pay the fine penalty tax, you are taken to prison. If you resist, well you know the rest.

[buckethead]

My failure to have insurance doesn't have the potential to directly impact the rights and property of others.

Oh, but it does.  If you're involved in a car wreck and are taken to the emergency room, they must treat you.  And if you don't have insurance, who do you think pays?  The people who DO have insurance, so it does direct impact others.

This is the defense (although shakey) for the whole enchilada. Why do progressives never consider that a person might pay his debt for emergency services rendered?

Indemnity/accident/catastrophic insurance is what is needed.

This is far from what has been passed.

[JeffreyS]

I do not so much disagree BH. Even though I am a big government health care guy I do not like the governing by tax method.  The reason I point out that it is a tax rather than a mandate is just that IMO it will hold up to legal scrutiny and has precedence as a method the government uses to "manage" us all.

[BridgeTroll]

If you steal, this makes you a thief, if you cheat it makes you a cheater.

Exactly.  My post shows that the insurance companies do not steal... nor do they cheat... on the grand scale which you and those to the left of you claim.  It is simply hyperbole and demonization of an industry you prefer to be nationalized.