A mericans who oppose health care reform — particularly reforms aimed at making health insurance secure and comprehensive, affordable and portable — should take a look at the latest controversies generated by health insurers’ heady profits and exorbitant rate proposals.
One controversy stems from a report showing that the combined profits of the nation’s five largest health care insurers soared 56 percent in 2009 during the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Their profits rose from $7.8 billion in 2008 to $12.2 billion last year, and did so despite the fact that they dropped a total of 2.7 million private-pay customers.
High profits, big rate hikes
Another controversy came in the wake of the 39 percent rate increase for individual policy holders proposed by California’s largest for-profit insurer, Anthem Blue Cross. That outsized rate hike would follow Anthem’s increases of up to 68 percent for the same policy holders less than 12 months ago.
It also directly illustrates how distorted the private health insurance market has become: it can lose customers, and exacerbate both the nation’s rate of uninsured and the cost of public health programs and mandates, and still make a whopping gain in profits simply through price hikes.