alt Hacker NewsWhat we can say for certain is that heath insurance companies in the US stuff their pockets with tens of billions in profits each year and that Americans are paying far more while getting less for their money than other developed nations. I don't think those two things are unrelated.
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gmoot • today at 2:43 AM
What is the profit margin of a health insurance company? Google suggests 2-4%, with United at about 6%. This does not seem that extravagant.
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U.S. healthcare spending is over $5 trillion a year. That’s $5,000 billion. So the “tens of billions in profits” you’re pointing to accounts for very little of what people spend on healthcare.
That’s what I mean when I refer to facile ideological reactions. For many people, “profits” are the problem, and they don’t care that health insurers on average are less profitable than Subway franchises. It’s just the mirror image of people who say the New York MTA is a disaster because the government is running it, and don’t care that governments in other countries manage to run cost-efficient train systems.