Cost-Effective Health Insurance Blocked By Decade-Long Profits
There are concerns over the cost of health care as the fight now progresses to the Senate. Supporters of reform state that health insurance is within reach if the health care costs are now reduced.
They may have a good point there because recent studies show that these health companies have tripled their profits in the last decade.
This is during a 10-year period that has seen major losses in most economic market sectors. While it adds up that the industry would be relatively resistant–after all, the demand for visiting a doctor or hospital doesn’t go away when the economy slumps–health care costs have soared since 2000, making health insurance less budget friendly.
The expensive health plans have increased the profits of the health insurance companies. Statistics show that the six health insurance companies which are listed in the S&P 500 have made over $10 billion profit.
These massive profits seem to be what’s standing in the way of people getting economical health insurance. But I bet you did not realize that insurance companies are the least profitable of the health care industry.
If the insurers aren’t mainly responsible for the absence of affordable health insurance in the U.S., who is? Medical suppliers and medical device makers saw the most improvement over the past decade. The former saw their profits increase by 17% since 2000, and the last mentioned had margins of 15%.
The margins of pharmaceutical firms have increased their margins to 25% and they have doubled their profits too. These industries have been solely responsible for the advances in medicine. At the same time, they have increased the costs of insurance on the same period of time.
How can we solve this problem? Control of prices is very unlikely but regulations passed for the health care bill will be able to help the health care industry and make health care insurance a bit more inexpensive.
There will definitely be more affordable health insurance Wyoming if health insurers are not required to pay for very expensive rates for their services and supplies but no one is sure how to make it happen.