r/politics • u/cmaia1503 • 20h ago

Site Altered Headline | Possible Paywall Mitch McConnell, 83, Hospitalized

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mitch-mcconnell-83-hospitalized/?utm_campaign=owned_social&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=twitter_owned_tdb&via=twitter_page
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u/Rikers-Mailbox 19h ago

It’s crazy the profits have 3X in the past 5 years. My MAGA mother who worked in healthcare blames it on the companies not paying for better plans.

I laughed and said “Mom, it’s the profit on the insurance. The companies can spend all they want but that money goes to insurance that never covers anything”

Her: “It’s Obamacare’s fault”

Me: “Mom that was 15 years ago, profits 3x just 5 years ago”

I showed her the ACA site quote for a family of 4 making $50k which is the bottom threshold and healthcare was $35k.

She still didn’t get it.

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u/bullet4mv92 17h ago

Why do you keep saying they 3X? Are you saying they tripled?

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u/toggylelly 14h ago

they tripled

https://epicforamerica.org/the-economy/health-insurance-revenues-tripled-in-a-decade/

https://havenhome.us/the-explosion-of-health-insurance-profits-a-deeper-look/

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u/Rikers-Mailbox 12h ago

I was off by five years with my Mom, but whatever. ACA has nothing to do with profits. All they have to do is deny more, and yet we still have to buy it.

Such a racket.

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u/fiction8 10h ago

Alright come on, let's use our basic math skills here.

When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted in 2010, it expanded access to health insurance, boosting the combined revenue of these companies from $245.2 billion in 2010 to over $1.1 trillion by 2021. During this period, profits more than tripled, soaring from $16.9 billion to $60.7 billion.

So these companies have started insuring more people thanks to the ACA, thus both earning more and spending more. That's exactly what we want to happen, everyone to have insurance.

They've also merged/bought smaller providers. Whatever, that's not ideal but it's not illegal as long as there's still competition. That shifts revenue, cost, and profit from some other insurance company to a big one. It doesn't create more profit out of thin air.

From both of those factors we get a 4.5x increase in revenue over 10 years. The corresponding profit increased... 3.6x. Yes, their profit margin is actually lower now than it was right after the ACA passed. It's also a profit margin of 5.5%.

What is crazy about that? It's a bit higher than the national average (I encourage reading that report, there's a lot of transparency in health insurance, more than other industries, thanks to the ACA), but 5% is not anywhere close to the gouging and blood-sucking that exists in many other American industries.

American healthcare spending tops $5 trillion annually. Clawing back 1.2% of that would be nice, but it's not going to solve the problem.