When you get the AP doing fact checking, you have to know something’s amiss in Obama fantasyland. In the POTUS’s desperate attempt to simplify his demand for remaking America’s health care system, he reverts to the proven Alinsky techniques of finding a demon, targeting that demon and isolating it to stir up public discontent.
His latest mantras have been focused on portraying those evil health insurers in the same light as Wall Street CEO’s.
Trouble is, facts get in the way of the rhetoric.
Per AP’s Calvin Woodward today, health insurers’ profits have barely exceeded 2% in the latest annual measures. With a traditional measure of a private enterprise’s financial health and growth potential generally hovering between 25-33% profit structure, one wonders how the heck they are surviving.
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.
~~~The debate is loaded with intimations that insurers are less than straight, when they are not flatly accused of malfeasance.
They may not have helped their case by commissioning a report that looked primarily at the elements of health care legislation that might drive consumer costs up while ignoring elements aimed at bringing costs down. Few in the debate seem interested in a true balance sheet.
But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground.
In a rare instance of calling out the WH and Congress on their exaggerations.. if not downright lies… Woodward examines the claims… and the facts.
THE CLAIMS
_”I’m very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers’ “obscene profits.”
_”Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade and their profits have skyrocketed.” Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.
_”Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe.” A MoveOn.org ad.
THE NUMBERS:
Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries. As is typical, other health sectors did much better — drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.
The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.
HealthSpring, the best performer in the health insurance industry, posted 5.4 percent. That’s a less profitable margin than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach and Molson and Coors beers.
The star among the health insurance companies did, however, nose out Jack in the Box restaurants, which only achieved a 4 percent margin.
UnitedHealth Group, reporting third quarter results last week, saw fortunes improve. It managed a 5 percent profit margin on an 8 percent growth in revenue.
As I pointed out in my August 8th post about Obama’s IMAC proposed power panel factoring into the big picture of moving the nation to single payer health care, the private insurers make up for the care providers’ losses from government underpayment for Medicare/Medicaid services. As costs increase for the providers, and govt payouts remain low (and are slated to go even lower under O’care), the privately insured pick up the providers’ losses by being charged as much as 29% *over* base costs. As more of the nation is noodged/guided/forced into government health options, there are less private insurers capable of covering the cost/profit gap.
No one denies the costs are rising astromically. However it boggles the mind to pretend that any current legislation does something to curb costs. In fact, it merely redirects administration of the high cost of health insurance to the government. However this study is proof positive that the insurers … paying the brunt of under funded/soon to be bankrupt Medicare costs… are feeling the effects on their bottom line P&L sheets. It’s a wonder they haven’t increased premiums more than they have, and are surviving with just over 2% profits now.
Since the next likely counter from the WH may be a predictable “blame Bush” finger point, we might as well address that tangent as well. The Bush years were no boom times for the industry, whose “…overall profits grew only 8.8 percent from 2003 to 2008, and its margins year to year, from 2005 forward, never cracked 8 percent.” So much from moving the “evil insurers” target to “it’s all Bush’s fault”.
In the meantime, Jack Kelly at Real Clear Politics is highlighting Reid’s failures to sneak in legislation that hides the cost of O’healthcare by playing games with the plans to slash payments to Medicare doctors… a prime reason the CBO’s estimate of the ghost Baucus bill was in the magic number realm.
Democrats were heartened Oct. 7 when the Congressional Budget Office said the version of Obamacare drafted by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, would cost “only” $829 billion over 10 years. The CBO had scored versions proposed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the leading House bill at more than $1 trillion.
Mr. Baucus achieved his apparent savings partly by omitting the “public option” dear to liberal hearts, partly by not covering all of the currently uninsured. But he achieved them mostly by front-loading tax increases and cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, but delaying most spending increases for two and a half years. Once the spending increases went into effect, they rapidly would overwhelm the “savings.” By the 11th year, the Baucus bill would add massively to the deficit.
There was a problem with this gimmick, though. Mr. Baucus proposed to save money in Medicare by gutting the Medicare Advantage program, in which 23 percent of seniors are enrolled, and by slashing the payments doctors and hospitals receive for treating Medicare patients.
Medicare currently reimburses doctors only 94 cents for each dollar of health-care services provided. To slash payments another 21.5 percent, as Mr. Baucus proposed, would not be popular with doctors. And if payments were slashed, many doctors who now treat Medicare patients would stop seeing them, which would not be popular with Medicare patients.
Naturally having this slash in reimbursement brings a plethora of repercussions… from the potential of even more doctors opting out of Medicare, to the inevitable reduction of Medicare benefits (most likely TBD by Obama’s separate legislation for the IMAC panel of health gods.)
To hide the genuine costs, Debbie Stabenow would introduce a separate bill that put a moratorium on the Medicare cuts for 10 years… after that, all bets being off. By hiding it as a separate bill, Reid figured he could claim the Baucus bill was still within Obama’s magic costs’ figure. Reid, however, did not count on the mutiny of 13 of his own…
To Mr. Reid, the solution was to offer the Stabenow measure as a separate bill and pretend it had nothing to do with the Obamacare plan. But last Wednesday, 13 Democrats joined all the Republicans in opposing this fiscal sleight of hand.
The defeat made Mr. Reid look like a putz. Majority leaders aren’t supposed to bring measures to the floor unless they have the votes, and he got beat bad. (Mr. Reid needed 60 votes to take up the Stabenow bill; he got 47.)
In defeat, Mr. Reid then acted like a putz. He blamed the loss on the failure of the American Medical Association to deliver Republican votes.
“Reid told colleagues that the AMA said it could deliver 27 Republican votes for the legislation, according to two Senate Democratic lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity,” The Hill newspaper reported.
Even if that were true — the AMA says it isn’t — it’s not a very politic thing to say about a lobbying group whose help Mr. Reid will need to get Obamacare passed. (Only about 17 percent of physicians belong to the AMA, a fact which journalists who write about health care ought to note, but rarely do.)
Many Republicans do support giving doctors relief from Medicare reimbursement cuts. It’s the fiscal sleight of hand to which they object.
The defeat leaves Democrats between a rock and a hard place. They still must merge the Baucus bill with the much more expensive HELP version. The combined bill probably can’t be passed unless the Medicare reimbursement problem is fixed, but that problem can’t be fixed without making it plain that Obamacare will balloon the deficit.
The answer is still, of course, to keep the media and public distracted from actual nefarious goings on to hide the debt associated with their desired remaking of America’s health care. So the finger pointing, the isolation of evil insurers, and whatever other story they can get going to distract focus is apt to continue.
But in the case of the insurers, they have shot themselves in the foot with their own study of profit margins. This means Obama, Pelosi and Reid are in serious need of a new bad guy. Or else they will be quite busy, manipulating their media arms into burying the truth.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
Thanks for posting on Reid’s slight of hand to try and cover up the real cost of Obama Care. I have been procrastinating on that same subject.
As for AP Woodward’s paragraph:
Like what Calvin? You mean like lawsuit abuse reform? It’s NOT in any of the bills. Nor is lifting the ban on interstate competition….. All ideas the GOP put forward and all voted down by Democrats.
One thing I would like to include from Woodward’s article:
; Yum Brands (think KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), 8.5 percent.
Is Nancy Pelosi going to go after Tupperware now? They have a higher profit margin than the greedy insurance companies.
You’re welcome, Mike. And thanks for highlighting some other points… like what is Congressional threshholds for “bad profit” percentage vs acceptable.
But I believe the nanny health elitists are already targeting KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell etal. Even still their profits remain respectable.
Pelosi going after Tupperware… LOL! Bet *she* won’t be invited to host any parties in the future!
Mataharley, you’re doing a great job of getting the facts out there.
Here’s what I posted on another forum around noon today:
Commenters said, “Don’t give him any ideas!”
You people throw that “socialist” term into everything like it’s a bad thing. If your house catches fire you would be more than happy to call out that “socialist” program called the fire department. What about those other “socialist” programs like police, military, FEMA, Medicare and others, should we make them all “for-profit”? Imagine this scenario, your house catches fire, you call the fire dept and they respond by saying “sorry you don’t have coverage, we cant come and save your house”. We will pour all kinds of money into programs to protect our property. What is the Republican answer to solving the health care crisis that faces this country?
@radion: Show me a socialist government in Europe or elsewhere that does a better job creating wealth, prosperity and opportunity for their people than the United States pre-Obama.
And as far as the military is concerned, that is a CONSTITUTIONAL requirement. Socialism and social justice which really means redistribution of wealth is NOT a constitutional imperative. It was an invention by do-gooder socialists who haven’t learned the lesson of unintended consequences which should have been made painfully clear by Europe’s flirtation with socialism.
Go read a book!
@Mikes America
Have you ever been to Europe? You just spouted Hannity’s talking points with nothing to back it up. Last time I checked most European countries were far ahead of the US when it comes to health care delivery. I am from Europe and have experienced their health care first hand, it is miles ahead of the US….I would like to ask you what your solution to the health care crisis, please don’t just say stuff like “health savings accounts and such, there are many who don’t have residual income to do that. What do we do just let them die? ………..PS I read many books
Europe far ahead of us? buwahahahahahaha!
Like how you say he makes claims without backing anything up, then do the same.
BTW, it’s clear YOU are parroting talking pints. We’ve had other leftists try to use the “socialist fire department” BS.
You are a typical leftwing hypocrite. Go back to DUNG or go bore your fellow koslims.
@hardright
That is the typical GOP, insult and attack, you had your 8 years and messed up the country. If you are so smart and done so much good for the country how come you couldn’t keep your majorities?????
“We’ve had other leftists try to use the “socialist fire department” BS.” You still didn’t say why that’s ok and health care isn’t????
Try growing a brain
Give me one good reason why we are allowing people to die in the debacle called health care in this country. It seems you hate Europeans so much because they are so much smarter than you.
Go back to europe with all the braindead leftist zombies. Stop fouling this site with leftist lies and propganda.
Oh, and look at cancer survival rates and then tell me who’s behind you moron.
Euros smarter? Hahahahahaha! Try more like 3rd worlders thanks to genuises like you.
How about proving what YOU claim? YOU attacked someone because they didn’t.
@Hard right… It is narrow minded, hateful people like you that are the reason only 20% of the country self identify as Republicans. For the record I am a center right leaning Christian who has cancer and got told by my insurance co that they can no longer cover me because of my cancer, despite paying my premiums for years. But what do you care, as long as it is you that is not impacted!! I pray that this doesn’t happen to you
@Hard right just because someone has an opposing point of view, you insult and denigrate. You have no intelligent answer so just keep spouting your hate and racism. Maybe God will forgive you. PS Cancer survival rates in Europe compare favorably with those in the US and life expectancy exceeds that of the US
@radion: I have been to Europe. And perhaps you should spend less time on your next visit with the Marxist Union and visit the Czechs, the Poles and the Hungarians. All of whom appear to have a better understanding of the unintended consequences of socialism than you do.
Put down Mother Jones Magazine and read a book not written by the Party approved author.
P.S. Socialism is HATEFUL! If you advocate socialism what does that make you?
@mikes america I have never been to Hungary so I cant comment on that but i have been to Netherlands, Germany, France and the UK all of which have far superior health care delivery systems than here (people dont get left to die) and as for your socialism rant, thats just another scary buzzword created by the right to make us believe that there is evil lurking on the left. Wanna look at hateful and evil, take a look at your own posts. I am not a socialist, and I don’t believe you even know what a socialist is. Talking points and buzzwords are all you have, thank God that most Americans are smarter than that.
Hmmmm….
Probably need to talk to these folks:
Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve
Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby
My husband had beaten cancer, then doctors WRONGLY told him it had returned and sent him to a hospice who let him die
Pathway for the elderly that leads to legal execution
What was your point again?
Why don’t you get a clue, you think those issues don’t happen here in the US, insurance companies are quite willing to let me and my cancer go away and die!!!!
May God bless America and thank God for the sanity of the Democratic Party, at least they are trying to something about the problem, unlike the right who just want to do nothing except obstruct and LIE.
Radion is just here to troll and spew hate…while accusing others of doing what he’s doing. Hey commrade, ever hear of projection? I am sure your psychiatrist can help you with that one.
Again, provide some links as to what you have claimed or STFU.
@Hard Right:
radion should probably stick with radio cuz debating a’int working out so well for him.
Notice how he accuses us of lying right after having his own lies pointed out?
We need better trolls…do they have those for sale on eBay?
Sure they do Aye. Brains not included…….or available.
It was clear from the start that it was a troll. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find it’s a sock too.
Do they rent trolls? Hmmm, maybe I’ve come upon a business venture?
You people just cant take it when someone hits back at you with something substantive and not in the same way as you have been attacking the left. I was referred here by someone who claimed there was some intelligent conversation going on here, they were so wrong. All you can come up with is stupid personal attacks and hate rhetoric. What you have here is another marginal hate monger site with NO facts. Don’t worry I wont be back, only the less than 20% of the country that calls it self Republican really cares about your radical points of view anyway. Go ahead you can applaud now, I have left the room.
@radion:
Where is this elusive “something substantive” of which you speak?
You’re right.
We had you pegged from your very first post.
Really?
Refer to post #15 for the quick and efficient defeat of this argument.
Radion, here’s a link you should REALLY click on. It explains you to a “T”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
You know, I imagine that radion has a plexiglass cover over his monitor that has a little wiper blade and moisture sensor. That way every time some foam flys from his mouth and hits it, it’s automatically cleaned away.
Came in here late to the game, I see… I’m still trying to figure out how local fire departments and civil services equates to socialism in his brain. Ever heard of state vs federal powers in the Constitution, radion?
Didn’t think so….
First, we can’t blame you since you’ve only entered this forum for the first time, and we certainly can’t expect you to think to browse the archives under the “Categories” link at the top of the page under “health care”. But we’ve said it over and over again, and I made a little list… just for ill-informed talking point parrots like you, radion. In fact, at the bottom of my August 8th post INRE Obama’s genuine health care czars, the IMAC, I have extolled many solutions. Most of which at some point or another have been raised by conservatives, and quashed by both people of your mentality and your socialist leadership. (Yes, I used the word “socialist” deliberately… just for you)
And speaking of socialism, all I can say is “if the shoe fits”, then wear it with pride.
While we’re discussing the *real* problem… which is controlling skyrocketing costs (none of which is in any of the suggested legislation)… perhaps you’ll put your extraordinary free-thinking brain power to why Obama’s attorneys and Sebelius are battling allowing affluent seniors to opt out of Medicare without having to yield their SS benefits? Bet you didn’t know that one, did you? Allowing even 1% of seniors to opt out can save $1.5 bil annually.
First of all, radion, I’m genuinely sorry that the big C has got a grip on you, if I am reading your comments correctly. This cannot be a joy in your life, and I hope that you know that the biggest battle to victory lies within yourself… not the government and your hope they they do right by your personally.
That said, we don’t allow people to die easily in this country. Go to any public ER and you are treated… insured or not. Your portrayal of our system is not only incorrect, but highly offensive. Don’t, however, count on that in the future. All legislation we have seen lays in place the financial necessity of lesser state of the art equipment and medicines, which will lead to triaging just who is of “productive age” and is, thereby, worthy of treatment over another.
Dammit. Radion reveals himself as the spineless coward he is and proclaims he is running away, just as I just get in the pool.
Even though we can all destroy any and all “arguments” he makes, I feel it’s important to adhere to Darwinist theory, and ensure the weak (like him) are excluded from the rhetorical gene pool.
Let’s take this stoopid freakin meme that the fire-department is somehow socialist in nature, and that because we’ve accepted firemen and their method of being paid, that for that reason and that reason alone we should hand our health-care over to lobbyists and bureaucrats …
Wrong. And I will only focus on the firemen/healthcare supposition.
The first point I want get out of the way, is this statement claimed by Statist’s that this is NOT being driven from Axelrod and Co…. Axelrod/Demo’s chose firemen because they are the most respected of our public employees, tied only with our warriors. They did NOT say Police. They did NOT say ambulance drivers, they did NOT say garbagemen, even though in most cities and counties, all those honorable men and women are supported in the EXACT method firemen are…but firemen are viewed as “better” by the public, so firemen is the comparison to be made.
But because Axelrod/Demo’s and every other pollster are from large cities, they forgot that MOST firemen in this country are NOT paid by the country, state, county or city…they are in-fact volunteers…not paid by anyone. At best they get expenses covered.
Verdict: Position destroyed.
Point 2.
Let’s assume that all firemen are paid by the “benevolent” government….If we are to compare firemen to healthcare, we do indeed already have a perfect analogy in place, but not what the Dictaphones of the left think it is.
It’s the CDC.
They fight the “fires” of healthcare everyday, and are to be commended for doing so. They even fight the healthcare “fires” of Europe and the world. Nobody does it better, no European/Asian/African agency comes close. They all look to and rely on this American citizen paid-for organization to save their collective asses several times a decade.
But yet they condescendingly bitch at us for our system of each individual paying for the insurance of each individual, when no matter HOW we choose to pay for our healthcare, our method has NOTHING to do with the health or payment method of heathcare, that they have chosen for themselves.
Verdict: Position destroyed.
Point 3.
Apples-to-apples…
I have fire INSURANCE, yet nobody in congress is harping my neighbor to pay it for me. My neighbor might even have better coverage than me, with a better deductible…maybe not. He might pay more, he might pay less. But because I stay focused on MY needs, and NOT what my neighbor may or may not have, and I DON’T fall for the wealth-envy angle the Demo’s use to stay in power with. My know my coverage is good enough for me, just as my healthcare coverage is good enough for me. It covered my wife’s (normally terminal) malignant melanoma, yet it is an HMO….supposedly not “good-enough” coverage for many. If one of several FIRE INSURANCE COMPANIES make me a better offer, I will go with them. One of them might even be in Indiana, yet I live in California…
Verdict: Position destroyed.
Point 4.
Liberals suck. They are weak. And as Darwin pointed out, the weak should die for the benefit and survivability of the remaining. If the liberals believe so strongly in Darwin, then they should heed his lesson and die off. If the liberals believe so strongly that man is overpopulating the planet to it’s detriment, then they should push for “bad” healthcare, or none at all.
I hate wordpress. This spastic outburst shows up in 1.2 seconds, but the one I actually thought-through and worked on TWICE refuses to show.Could somebody somewhere find and post my contribution?
Edit/added…Now three freakin times….
Got ’em both out, Patvann… which one do you want? heh
Took you a while to vent there, Patvann. :0) But I think your point # four was my sole point to radion. States have rights to contract for local civil services that, as you describe, run the gamut from garbage collection to police departments and fire personnel. And indeed, we here in the rural areas have volunteer fire personnel, plus our neighbors. The closest thing we may have to a “federal” fireman would be the forest fire rangers and paratroopers.
States and localities have a right to make decisions for civil services themselves. The feds, since they’ve decided to be land owners (as well as auto manuf owners and bank owners) with national parks do have personnel to maintain them. Socialism? Again, no. Don’t see where they are mandating every citizen in the US to bow to their wishes.
And the military? Constitutionally required. And, in fact, one of the only few things the feds are Constitutionally allowed to do… protect the nation.
The feds do not have the right to mandate health care to then nation, nor does government mandated health care bear any resemblence to the feds maintaining foresty personnel. Thus my point to the Constitutionally clueless radion.
@Patvan Your unintelligent ramblings are just that, your name calling doesn’t become someone of your supposed intellect. All I get out of your rant is that you are a bitter, selfish person who thinks of only yourself and how much monetary wealth you can acquire. If that is your thing in life, fine. I happen to have a different philosophy in life, its called do unto others as you would have done unto you. And help those in need. I know one thing…I have more spine than you will ever have. Now go get rid of Medicare…I dare you
PS I left because there is no intelligent conversation here Buh Bye now
Excellent. “Radion” or whoever it is became an FA lightning rod here!
A product of the Current Public School indoctrination System for sure.
When the propaganda and talking points of the left don’t work they get pissy and evacuate.
OOH RAH!
he said, as he fled the scene.
::snicker::
Thank you Mata… for your patience, your comments, and your contributions. 🙂
@Radion. Pffft.
If the best counter-posit you have is a strawman-based whine, assumptions as to my personal wealth, and a re-direct, then you are obviously out of your league here.
Good luck finding a wading pool to match the depth of your intellect and verve…this pool’s too deep for you and your rhetorical floaties. In fact, the new Whitehouse.gov site should fit you perfectly, and no one will ever question your view, nor rise to your level of discourse.
An interesting concept, you have firemen and police so you are Socialists well on your way to being Communists. Stalin and Mao had no idea how simple the process can be.
Although Stalin said, more or less, give me a child for four years and I will make a Communist, give me a kid for eight years and I will make a revolutionary.
I am surprised they have waited so long to make their move.
The Radions are poised to P*** on the US, the Constitution, and our way of life; just like their leader, Fearless Teleprompter Reader.
Oh yes radion, you are so wonderful and we are sooo evil. You are the atypical “selfless” narcissist. You claim to want to help others, but it’s really about how you want to feel better about yourself and superior to others. As usual you want to do this with other people’s money and at the expense of their rights. Liberal fascist (oxymoron) describes you well.
Intelligent conversation? Like that gem you defecated about fire departments being socialist? How about how you assumed that Mike (and probably everyone else here) haven’t been to Europe or experienced socialist healthcare? Or how you demanded others show proof of what they claimed, but REFUSED to do so yourself. What about you demanding an answer, but basically saying you won’t accept any answers you don’t agree with. You’re what, 16?
No, the REAL reason you left is that in your little fantasy world you have stereotyped Conservatives or those that disagree with you as stupid, uninformed, and poor thinkers. You thought it would be a cakewalk, that you would dominate and cause chaos. When that didn’t turn out to be the case and you were shown to be projecting your short comings onto us, you ran from reality like all leftists do. Now stay away and let the gown ups talk.
And thank *you*, Patvann (#31). I do notice that radion decided to return, pronounce no comment “intelligent” and worthy of addressing, and decided to totally bypass mine.
Whatsamatter, radion? Terrified of real cyber conversation?
I see you have revealed yourself as a disingenuous buffoon, and probably are lying thru your teeth INRE your own personal health.
You have one more opportunity to actually engage in civil conversation with me here. If not, I shall personally throw you into the spam filter as garbage.
Our Mata: The prettiest, smartest garbage-disposal in the rightwing blogosphere!
LOL! Patvann, I do have to love the internet, where an old broad can still be “pretty”. :0) I have long since left the mental need to be “young and cute” in the dust. HA
Threadjack!
Attitude, confidence, knowledge, spirit, toughness and love of life is where it’s at…young and cute is now only mildly amusing, and usually annoying. Having a 16y/o daughter does that to you.
I’ve been married now 22 years, and my “lady-J” gets better in every way, every year. What I’ve done in some past life to deserve her still baffles me. I once dreaded getting older, and was once so shallow as to be afraid of my wife getting older, but after going through hell and back together, nothing could ever get between us. If I could trade her in for her “young” version, I would refuse it.
You ain’t old, you ain’t broad, and in the eye of this beholder, ya still got it goin on. 😉
We now return you all to fighting the government takeover of our healthcare, and bashing liberals.