I’d chalk this up to the kind of “creative accounting” they do in the movie industry. But that’s just a guess, I don’t have any knowledge on the matter.
A small percentage of hyper inflated prices over a large consumer base still equates to MASSIVE profits. It is a fundamental ethical flaw that we even allow for-profit medicine that is compounded by obvious cartel organization structures and corruption.
Some of that is “clever” accounting, the rest is that healthcare insurances don’t have bargaining power with the providers. In Germany the state insurance companies have collective bargaining power so that for example an ambulance ride costs 500€ instead of 15000.
Even if I took this at face value it only confirms to me even more that for profit insurance is a ghoulish waste of resources. So much pain and suffering just to milk people in need of a pittance of a profit margin (relatively speaking) is atrocious.
While it’s good that you’d want to improve the system you’ll have to look deeper as to why.
First results from my search:
Health insurance has about 3.3% net profit margin. United had 3.6% last data I found. (The rest of US industry average is 8.54%.)
The profit margins of insurance alone can’t explain why your healthcare costs 40% more than any other country.
Considering insurance, and medical facilities negotiate to set their costs every year, I don’t trust that their profit is so low.
I’d chalk this up to the kind of “creative accounting” they do in the movie industry. But that’s just a guess, I don’t have any knowledge on the matter.
A small percentage of hyper inflated prices over a large consumer base still equates to MASSIVE profits. It is a fundamental ethical flaw that we even allow for-profit medicine that is compounded by obvious cartel organization structures and corruption.
Some of that is “clever” accounting, the rest is that healthcare insurances don’t have bargaining power with the providers. In Germany the state insurance companies have collective bargaining power so that for example an ambulance ride costs 500€ instead of 15000.
That’s by design.
The money is being paid out and the profits reaped elsewhere.
Even if I took this at face value it only confirms to me even more that for profit insurance is a ghoulish waste of resources. So much pain and suffering just to milk people in need of a pittance of a profit margin (relatively speaking) is atrocious.