Does our President use Facts or Emotion to advance his agenda?
Both. Like every President who has ever served in office. So the insurance industry ranks #86 in profit margin. Profit margin is not the most relevant measure of the success of an industry. Investors never use profit margin as the most significant measure of success. More often they use return on equity. Obviously, the complaint about insurance industry profits is not about PROFIT MARGIN. Profit margin is just one measure of “profits,” which is a much more general term. Your own chart shows that periodical publishing is the #1 industry as measured by profit margin. Do you seriously think the magazine industry shows growth potential in this day and age? Please. More to the point: The purpose of healthcare reform is not to reduce profits. It’s to provide people with health care. If you had paid one moment of attention to the actual arguments of reform proponents, you would have known that.
My sister’s friend just died from complications of breast cancer and the after-treatment. She was a highly successful, hard-working individual, as was her husband. They had two children together, some savings in the bank, nice house, etc. She was 52 years old. They were covered through an HMO with a cap limit on it. Her breast cancer treatments severely damaged her heart. She needed a pace maker. The HMO benefits funds were exhausted. Her family would have gone medically bankrupt to install the pace maker and subsequent treatments. Rather than force her family to be in debt the rest of their lives, or lose everything they had, she chose to not have the pace maker, and also chose to die. She had a $200k life insurance company that she thought her family could use to recover from the existent medical debts (after the HMO benefits ran out.) Was she stupid? Was she selfish? Was she cheap? Or, is there something wrong with the system? The HMO is, in the meantime, making millions in profits
