Based on company financial reports filed with the Security and Exchange Commission for 2009, the five largest health insurance companies racked up a combined profit of $12.2 billion, up 56% from 2008. That according to a report by "Health Care for America Now."
Other information in the report showed the companies covered 2.7 million people less than the year before and that three of the five insurers cut the propotion of premiums they spent on their customers medical care, committing relatively more to salaries, administration expenses and profits.
The latest poll shows that the people still oppose health care reform. They have been duped by both the republicans and the insurance industry and have failed to think for themselves based on what is taking place with the health care debate and how insurance companies are manipulating the facts.
Health insurer WellPoint, one of the five insurers in the report, in a separate report announced a 39% increase in rates for some California customers of its Anthem Blue Cross plan. These are the same people who said Health Care legislation would raise insurance rates. Yet they are raising rates like they do every year and the country does not have Health Care legislation at this writing. The insurance people lie just like the oil and gas industry.
It is time for state and federal regulators to step in and do what is necessary to change the outrageous behavior of these people. Their obscene profits and rate increases come at a time when the people are still trying to find jobs because of the recession. Insurance companies have no conscious and their monopoly has to come to an end.
