You want the truth? The insurance companies are an industry which offers a product. The reason they are getting more and more screwed up is government control. Will the takeover of our economy by bureaucrats in Washington ever end? And MORE IMPORTANT - when are we going to demand they stop!
Washington's latest target is America's "fat cat" health insurance companies. A closer look reveals a vital but vulnerable industry, not the greedy, profiteering image pushed by health reformers.
We've seen "Big Oil" dragged to Capitol Hill to be slandered by power-hungry senators and congressmen for finding, extracting and refining the lifeblood commodity of the global economy. We've seen the pharmaceutical industry drawn and quartered for doing what it takes to discover, make and market lifesaving and life-enhancing drugs.
The latest villain in the politicians' demagogic fantasyland is private health insurance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused private insurers of making "immoral profits." And they're a prime target for taxes to pay for the health care revolution Congress and the White House have planned.
But in fact, as we pointed out recently in these pages, this is an industry that actually lags many others in the U.S. economy. Plenty of other sectors of private industry are doing far better.
And some of the things Washington has planned — in particular a "public option" — would leave private insurers bankrupt.
As the Associated Press recently reported, the health insurance industry's profit margins tend to be in the 6% range, not impressive at all when compared with other areas of insurance. Margins shrank to 2.2% last year, with health insurers ranking 35th on the Fortune 500 list of industries. As a result, the credit ratings of some leading insurers have been downgraded to negative. READ at IBD
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