Health Insurance Profits

Remember early last year when the whole Health Care Reform thing got started? Then the town hall meetings and Tea Parties with the angry old folks erupted. It turned out that dog just wouldn't hunt. So the nice people who run things in D.C. decided it was time to retool the message. Voila! "Health Insurance Reform" was born. That worked a lot better. You know, demonize those Armani-clad, grossly-overpaid fat cat healthcare executive pirates sitting atop their lofty perches in those green glass skyscrapers for the unconscionable profits their industry was reaping at the expense of the elderly, the poor and the infirm.

Interestingly, the reliably progressive Associated Press chose to post a fact check note on October 24th on just how profitable these companies really are. According to the AP, the healthcare industry ranks number 35 out of 53 in the Fortune 500 for profitability. The average profit they earned in '08 was 2.2%. That compares, as example, with Big Railroad, which earned a 12.6% profit. HealthSpring was the best performer in healthcare insurance with 5.4%. You should know that the makers of Clorox Bleach and Coors beer did better than that. UnitedHealth Group, one of the most profitable in health insurance at 5%, was able to trounce Jack in the Box restaurants which made only 4%. Clearly the health insurance industry is way too profitable to be permitted to retain those egregious earnings.

I urge you to contact your Congresspersons and demand that they immediately adopt the Public Option/Socialized Medicine/Universal Healthcare or whatever they may choose to call it next and put an end to the infernal pillaging and plundering by far-too-profitable Big Health Insurance before it's too late! Once that's over we can go after Big Burgers, Big Bleach and Big Beer.

By the way, don't you find it interesting that the AP's review wasn't considered important enough to be given reportage by the dinosaur media?