Quote Originally Posted by GeoFisher View Post
AND health insurance companies don't make lots of money..........in fact our profit margins are about 3-4 percent.
Geo - I'm assuming that's 3-4% net profit, bottom line, after expenses, interest, and taxes? If so, that's not drastically high or low compared to many companies. (Totally different industry, but our company puts about 4% net profit on the bottom line after expenses.)

I agree with you that it's not really the insurance companies causing the problem. I'm sure there are questionable practices that don't help any, just like any other industry, but if 80% of what they take in for premiums is paid back out in benefits (I believe that was the ballpark number at one point) and they are operating on ballpark 20 points to pay all of their expenses, sales/marketing costs, payroll, etc....and they net 3-4 on the bottom line....that's not out of the ordinary. With some companies being "self insured" these days, the insurance company just becomes a paperwork shuffler a lot of times too. And yeah, they have some high paid top brass executives...what big company doesn't?

Hospitals and Doctors do have their fair share of expenses to cover, but I would think it's the $25 Tylenol and $5000 MRI being billed that is the root of the issue...not to mention the DRUG companies, charging unreal prices for medicines and claiming that it's because of R&D expense. They have R&D expense, don't get me wrong, but how about their cost of advertising? (Ever count the number of drug commercials during the evening news?)