But you speak as though you do object
"But there are serious questions to be raised about the size of
health insurance profits."
My casual reading of industrial comparisons puts the net profit
margin for the health insurance industry somewhere between 4 and 11
percent; hardly levels I'd consider questionable or even worthwhile
considering the levels of risk involved today.
Now, if you want to talk about eliminating anti-trust and monopoly
rents in the health care arena, I'd probably be your biggest fan.
Again, these are distortions totally created by government
intervention by:
o Incentives and disincentives via the tax code
o Favoring employer and state provided coverage over personally
provided coverage
o Not allowing insurance to be purchased across state lines
o Regulation through mandates, which discourages competition
o The biggest monopoly, Medicare
o Practically zero transparency
But none of this is on the current agenda, which almost completely
driven with the goal of a single-payer system. And the biggest
problem with the single payer system is that it's not-for-profit,
meaning that nobody comes out ahead for doing it well.
