Healthcare Followup
By CRAIG DELLA PENNA on August 15, 2009 at 9:30 PM in Current Affairs
My Congressman held two teleconference townhall meetings this week and I got to listen in but wasn’t able to get to ask a question. That was probably better in the end because I would likely have used bad language and offended a lot of the little old ladies who were also listening.
The meeting was edifying in a couple of ways: I was struck by the trust and goodwill of the people calling in. They were concerned about their relatives or their friends and sometimes themselves. They wanted to know if thus and such would be changed for the better (or for the worse). They were worried that they or someone they loved would be left out or denied something by the new regime. And the Congressman was empathic and did his best to allay their concerns. He was also well-versed in the details of the plan, such as it is. I don’t know if I would have had the heart to confront him in front of constituents in that kind of need.
However, I will be writing him about this disastrous bill and letting him know that there are those of us who will not let this stand. The Congressman is on the Ways and Means committee and obviously has invested his time and effort to make the best of this bad legislation. He has, of course, lost his view of the forest in concentrating on the trees. The more this goes on the more it becomes clear that this is the bastard child of Tom Daschle and Rahm Emmanuel, combining the worst features of each political hacks wet dreams. And the very worst thing about this is that, if it is passed, it will vitiate any energy for true change for at least a generation, maybe two. There’s still time before the recess ends to make it clear to all the politicians out there that this is unacceptable and if they vote for it, they can expect consequences at the ballot box next time.
In the comments on my last post, someone asked where I was getting my figures from, a legitimate question given all the folderol going around. So I went to EdgarOnline go here the free service which provides SEC required documents that are filed by all publically held companies. The following are excerpts from the top four healthcare insurers in the US. The 10-K form is the annual report, the Operating Revenues and Expenses information is usually found in the Selected Financial Data, Item 6 of the form. These are the results for 2008. I did not include Cigna because they found another way to hide their profits by only presenting expenses as a combination of ‘benefits paid on policies’ and ‘general company expenses’.
Caveat: almost all these companies are holding companies for yet other companies – Wellpoint has three different companies, Aetna at least one other and it looks like United Health Group has five alter egos. Each of these entities provides a menu of different ways to hide profits. I also note that these companies seems to have remarkably similar after-tax profits year on year – a very modest 3-5% (nothing to see here, go on about your business) while they continue to raise rates (according to them) about 7-10% each year.
>Wellpoint, for example claims a profit before taxes of 5.1% – $3,135,649,200.00 and an after tax profit of 4.1% – $2,467,168,000.00. Leaving aside the fact that they’re only paying a 1% tax rate, according to their own figures (can I have that rate, please?). Where did the other $10,801,150,800.00 go? If that truly represents what is cost to administer their plan then the CEO is easily the worst administrator since Hammurabi and should be kicked to the curb instantly.
My original statement was that private insurance companies reap 20-30% profits from the suffering of others. I’m certainly in the ballpark and I’m willing to argue the point with anyone. Another statement I made was that any profit made from the suffering of others was obscene. These figures only make that point more poignant.
United Health Group
United Health Group 2008 Results of Operations SEC filing 10-K
Revenues $81,186,000,000.00
Medical Costs $60,359,000,000.00
Remainder $20,827,000,000.00
Remainder as percentage of Revenue: 25.6%
Wellpoint
Wellpoint 2008 Results of Operations SEC filing 10-K
Premiums $61,679,200,000.00
Benefit expense $47,742,400,000.00
Remainder ; $13,936,800,000.00
Remainder as percentage of Premiums: 22.6%
Aetna PA
Aetna Inc PA 2008 Results of Operations SEC filing 10-K
Revenues $28,775,000,000.00
Medical Costs $20,785,000,000.00
Remainder $7,990,000,000.00
Remainder as percentage of Revenue: 27.7%
Humana
Humana 2008 Results of Operations SEC filing 10-K Item 6
Revenues $28,064,844,000.00
Benefit Expenses $23,708,233,000.00
Remainder $4,356,611,000.00
Remainder as percentage of Revenue: 15.5%
(Release: November 13)
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$10,801,150,800.00 buys alot of “hope and change”.
Shouldn’t the tax rate be tied to the profit in some way?
One is a lonely number.
Yes…Until the Budget is Balanced at all times..
Oh..wait..The Obama Admint wants to raise the National debt Ceiling ABOVE 12 Trillion $$$$..
Whose gonna STOP em..The Other BARNEY..??(Bushes Dog)
You Know…
The One with the legitaimate excuse to Lick Himself…
Here is Kent Conrad to expand on your point Patrick.
Budget Ceilings will be raised as high as the amount bullshit BO can shove in it.
WOW TEAK..
Another Developing BUBBLE..then
According to CBO Director ELMENDORF..(Videos available)during Congressional testimony..so Will Obamas universal helath care Plan..require raising the Budget ceilings..
Oh..but He’s just an Expert on the BUDGET..
and OBAMA …with all his Background and administrative experiences says It will be REVENUE NEUTRAL..
See, its simple..you want to COAST..Put Er in Neuteral..
Drifting..Bobbing along..In Neuteral..
Didn’t believe anything Rev. Wright said..I was Neuteral..
Didn’t know anything bout the SDS and Billy Bomber Ayers…I was just a kid and Neuteral..
Didn’t know about the viscious attacks on Sarah Palin..I was Neuteral..
Wasn’t a muslim..I was neuteral..Don’t even go to Church anymore..I’m so neuteral..
Obama flys on Air Force one so Much..he is real Proof that hot Air Rises..and planes can fly on Neuteral Revenue…
I’m not an expert on Wellpoint, but it seems the numbers are misconstrued here. So they first deduct benefit payouts from revenue, ok. They then must take out OTHER operating costs from the remaining revenue to get pre-tax profit. Operating costs include salaries, benefits to employees, admin costs, overhead, etc. (and remember, all those salaries get income taxes, etc, taken out of them later as well) which ostensibly come to 10 billion.
And the tax rate is more like 20%. If pre-tax is 5.1% of overall revenue, taking roughly 20% out of that amount would make your after tax profit 4.1%.
So for the year highlighted it seems that for every $6.10 you paid Wellpoint, you got $4.70 worth of healthcare, paid $1.08 in admin fees, and gave 31 cents to the shareholders.
It’s good to have this kind of information and I believe your interpretation….not because I know anything about finance or business…but because I used to have a co-worker whose wife was an accountant and who worked for Blue Cross/Blue Shield and…according to my co-worker’s wife, those folks were rolling in the money. And I believed what he reported because he felt bad because his wife got a big raise and a big bonus…and he got nothing working for the government.
So you worked with the guy who “worked for the Government”.
And he got nothing?
That’s hilarious.
Thank you for this post!
We need tort reform and portability of coverage; we don’t need Obama lying to the American public about doctors charging $30-$40-$50 thousand dollars for an amputation or claiming that doctors remove tonsils because they are greedy. We don’t need Pelosi calling those who dare to ask questions at Town Hall meetings “nazis” and “astro-turf.” We need our elected officials to act responsibly and stop with the name-calling and fabrications.
Wow. Thanks so much for the numbers and link, Craig. This is way beyond Fishiness–you actually dare to post evidence! They will need a new category, something like Factual Flagrancy. Whatever it is, it needs to be reported at once to the proper authorities.
Factual Flagrancy-ism. good one.
It’s not a little fishy, it’s a great white shark.
CDP, thank you so much for posting this information. The only reason the average American keeps getting fleeced is that the ones doing the fleecing know more about how our government works than the rest of us.
In a country that held a revolution over a tea tax, HR 3200 will create a mandate for individuals to buy insurance or be taxed. There are even reporting requirements to the IRS. Hello, Big Brother.
This will not do.
Taxes have always been part of American society. It’s only illegal or unjust taxes that could be considered to be unamerican.
But taxes vital to the nation, such as taxes to support the presidency and Congress, taxes for the military and taxes for infrastructure, have always been part of the American system. Gradually, other services have come to be seen as vital and necessary for the common good, like education, police services, & firefighters. Imagine what a mess the country would be if the police and fireservices were private, and were not available to everyone.
Why is it such a stretch to think of primary healthcare services as something that should be available to all, equally?
The problem with the Obamacare legislation is not that it tries to institute universal coverage. The problem is not that Obamacare tries to mandate coverage for all legal residents in the United States: – the problem is that the legislation lets the insurance companies set their own prices, and many of the new policy holders the insurance companies will get as a ‘windfall’ of this legislation will have their premiums subsidized by taxpayer dollars. The problem with the Obamacare insurance reform is that is doesn’t really reform the insurance system at all. It just extends it and gives it massive new revenues, without any real attempt to limit the greed, corruption and profiteering that are now the core of the system. The legislation also makes only a laughable attempt to control the obscene prices Americans pay for drugs.
If Obama were to legislate real reform, and move to a Single Payer Canadian-style system, or at least to a system based on the Swiss model, Americans would get better care, and pay less for it. Americans need to realize that no other country in the Western world has such expensive healthcare, and that this spending is not buying them better care.
DUH.
I keep wondering how a CIA agent who is running this site wouldn’t know what the hell is going on.
Strange.
Cheney was evil? Hey, he’s not in office anymore.
I live in TODAY.
And this administration makes the BUSH administration look like chump change.
See, the old admin fought terrorists.
This admin fights their own PEOPLE.
Hey, am I on your list Washington? You bullshit artists?
I feel better now.
Tammy Attacked me previously and now is attacking Larry Johnson, therefore I now take it as a badge of honor.
LMAO troll. Cheney convinced Shrub to enrich Haliburton and Blackwater but did zero to contribute to our safety. They mainly looted our treasury to line the pockets of THEIR supporters. Real safety would have included a real barrier on our border to the south. I don’t see one, yet.
I don’t like and didn’t vote for That One and left the Democratic party after 32 years. That does not translate into support for the previous Administration, which will now be relegated to the position of second-worst in history now that the Anointed One will take that honor.
Bush/Cheney created tax policies to redistribute wealth upwards; That One and bots want to create tax policies to redistribute wealth downwards. Since the middle-class, of which I am a member, always gets the bill, it matters not to whom the money is going–I’m still paying.
What I would dearly love to see is the day when you slack-jawed right-wing extremists and unicorn-riding left-wing extremists get kicked to the curb by a pissed-off centrist majority.
Well said, Ferd. I’m hoping the PUMA (party unity my a**) movement planted a seed, so that our “leaders” will stop construing the country as nothing but two camps of wingers, and start listening to the majority.
Although, I don’t see any evidence of that in the town halls! They still don’t seem to be trying to listen to the different viewpoints….
I concur, lorac. We do need reform and not just another means for insurance companies to line their pockets to our detriment. There are all sort of ways to reform healthcare that don’t include more money for administrators, lawyers, bureaucrats, and figureheads. We need to cut out the middleman, as it were.
Beware the Counterrevolution
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/beware_the_counterrevolution.html
Now, for a bit of levity, Obama Care for Old and Fat People…enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IQSbJUj7u8
Eleana, that video is brilliant and hilarious! Sounds so much like Thee One trying to sing! Very well done–thanks so much! I’ll be spreading it around . . .
Tammy, I don’t get the point of your comment, so won’t even tag on to it.
Craig,
This has always been my biggest worry. I have several people I love very much. Their healthcare options are my biggest worry in regard to them. I want healthcare reform badly. But my gut says this boondoggle will make things worse for them. Where is the America that I remember that could get things done right.
‘Death panel’ is not in the bill… it already exists
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/death_panel_is_not_in_the_bill.html
Wow–very interesting!
I know some of you might feel that I am like those mentally ill cat ladies because I write about animal rights so much. But I just think it is interesting that over the forty years that I have been active in this movement, especially in regard to the shelter animals, the human movement has made great strides to move from feeling that euthanasia is best for animals, to attempting to move entirely to the no-kill philosophy–even for older and very ill or injured animals. It seems we’re going in the opposite direction as far as our feelings about humans.
“humane movement,” not “human movement”
Here’s your latest installment of CHICAGO STYLE PAY-TO-PLAY:
Health Economy Now, the group that is heavily funded by Big Pharma, and is running all the high-dollar ads touting Obamacare, gave out some fat contracts to make those ads.
Guess which consulting groups are making a bundle designing those ads? Why, it’s Axelrod’s good buddies at the company he founded! Also GMMB, who were and are heavily involved with Organizing For America, and who recently hired the facebook kid who did such a nice job pushing Hopenchangen, at a very nice salary.
Nice to know that while Obama could not drive a good deal on drug prices for the American people, he did very well indeed at diverting some Big Pharma profits into the pockets of his political cronies.
http://patdollard.com/2009/08/86779/
I am so surprised!
shocked. shocked, i tell you.
We are so screwed. Great post Craig, thanks!
This all just makes me sick!
Informative post Craig.
I listened to one of these phone townhalls, people calling about their fricking cholesterol levels and blood pressure readings…as if the Congressperson is going to fix things for them…
well, they’ll FIX things alright, they use those in misery for their own powergrubbing, they’ll TAKE CARE of you alright, so you won’t have any more freedoms left (or money!)
might as well revoke your US citizenship before 2013 since illegals get to vote, get healthcare free, no fines or taxes to pay…..why keep getting your ass kicked as a US citizen?
I think it’s time that we see posts about how Democrats created the great health care debacle of ‘09. So here’s mine…
How to Create a National Health Care Debacle
1. Write a thousand page bill giving government control of all facets of health care.
2. Deny angrily that the bill constitutes government run health care.
3. Scoff at the very idea of reading the bill.
4. Pass an amendment excluding coverage for abortion, and vote down the amendment on the second ballot.
5. Campaign against the insurance companies’ windfall profits, and then order individuals to buy insurance under penalty of additional taxes.
6. Imply that oponents of the plan are Nazis, or constitute a mob.
7. Imply that insurance companies are behind the mobs of protesters.
8. Have the president drop hints that there will be tough choices to make about end of life care.
9. Have the president deny that he intends to kill or euthanize grandma.
10. Let CBO score cost of the plan at a trillion dollars.
11. Make the president insist that the plan must be passed in order to cut escalating health care costs.
12. Hint to single payer supporters that the bill will lead to single payer.
13. Give millions to the ad firm for the president’s campaign, in order to sell the plan.
Thanks, Craig.
This simple list of the big four health insurance compainies’ money in/money out is easy to understand. Now, we can ask specifically, where’d you big companies spend all your money? Who’s your banker? Which political campaigns have you supported with your money? Who do you make deals with in Congress and the WH? AAAANNNNNDDD, when did you know bho the fraud was a selfish, self-centered, ignorant, lying, cheating narcissistic power grubbing puppet whose strings you could easily pull????
One IMPORTANT thing we have to keep in mind as we discuss the healthcare issue is that . . .
There is NO healthcare “bill” in Congress.
And anyone who goes around telling people what “is in” the healthcare bill is misleading people.
There are currently THREE different bills in the House and at least TWO in the senate.
Even if each house of Congress passes SOME healthcare bill, the two houses will still have to reconcile any differences between their two versions.
In addition, there are numerous proposed amendments to each of the bills.
What we do know for sure is that there is NO single-payer proposal in ANY of the current bills — and the reason for that is that Obama and the influential members of Congress have been PAID OFF by the corporate health interests.
Furthermore, our president is the consummate CON-MAN.
That’s what a con-man does: He promises you wonderful things but delivers garbage.
Obama is no longer committed to “healthcare” reform; all he’s after now is “health insurance reform.”
I seem to recall that Obama took in nearly $19 million from health-care companies and their employees. http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/533/9/
Gee.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-jab-link-killer-nerve-disease-Leaked-letter-reveals-concern-neurologists-25-deaths-America.html
Baxter International
It was Baxter International
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/02/27/8560781.html
Wonder who owns stock in Baxter International? More of just the Chicago Way?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baxter_International
Yes, I read the Baxter piece in a London newspaper online. Where is our govt in this disaster? Sebelius was on Jake Tapper this AM and this didn’t come up—at least the portion I saw, so I am wondering if taped.
We should trust the government with very, very little. Certainly not our health care.