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I just explained this, maybe you didn't live through the Obamacare legislation or didn't bother reading my whole response. I admit I didn't research specific pr

I just explained this, maybe you didn't live through the Obamacare legislation or didn't bother reading my whole response. I admit I didn't research specific profit margin figures, but your numbers ... simply strengthen my contention. UHC and other health insurers are swimming in money. Yet the reported profits are very low ... why? Obamacare was ground zero for public healthcare. If it wasn't for utter slimeball Joe Lieberman doing the dirty work blocking medicare for all for the insurance companies, they would have been tossed out completely. Again, the US is the ONLY first world economy that doesn't have social health insurance. The economics of our health care system are not sustainable, and large changes will eventually come. The health care cartel cannot show the profit margins of drug/device companies. Insurance companies are the ones that deny coverage, so they are front and center with people hating the current healthcare system. So the healthcare companies DON'T show profit, instead they expand revenue as much as possible, and the executives funnel money to a bloated management structure. You don't need high profits to drive stock growth, you just need to get ... bigger, and that's what they do. You can do other things to boost stock price without showing profits ... use ... wait for it ... excess revenue to do stock buybacks. You can "reinvest" into expanding the vertical integration of your monopoly. You can buyout more hospital networks, effectively expanding the number of people that HAVE to use your insurance. Let me give another example. Why are MBAs flocking to nonprofit universities? There's no stock options. There's no cashing out in mergers and acquisitions. Why? Money floods into the universities as the endowments explode, every year the tuition increases well above inflation. Yes there is a facilities race, but why do MBAs love it? Well, it is a cushy job, universities are nice places to work. But, since there's no shareholders, no owner to show profits to, they can skim off the vast revenue increase from exploding endowments and tuition increases and... pay themselves more money.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
> You don't need high profits to drive stock growth, you just need to get ... bigger, and that's what they do. You can do other things to boost stock price without showing profits ... use ... wait for it ... excess revenue to do stock buybacks. This is false. Stock buybacks can only happen from net income, which is why health insurers don’t do them…since they have very little net income (aka profit). > executives funnel money to a bloated management structure You will have to provide proof that at least 7 publicly listed companies’ executives are colluding in such a manner AND their shareholders are willingly going along with employees enriching themselves at the shareholders’ expense. Lots of bold claims with no evidence, and some outright wrong ones. >If it wasn't for utter slimeball Joe Lieberman doing the dirty work blocking medicare for all for the insurance companies, they would have been tossed out completely. Also, there are 100 senators, and so legislation passing/not passing can never be blamed on just one. Leiberman took the public relations hit, but there were 40 other nay votes to blame also.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

> You don't need high profits to drive stock growth, you just need to get ... bigger, and that's what they do. You can do other things to boost stock price without showing profits ... use ... wait for it ... excess revenue to do stock buybacks. This is false. Stock buybacks can only happen from net income, which is why health insurers don’t do them…since they have very little net income (aka profit). > executives funnel money to a bloated management structure You will have to provide proof that at least 7 publicly listed companies’ executives are colluding in such a manner AND their shareholders are willingly going along with employees enriching themselves at the shareholders’ expense. Lots of bold claims with no evidence, and some outright wrong ones. >If it wasn't for utter slimeball Joe Lieberman doing the dirty work blocking medicare for all for the insurance companies, they would have been tossed out completely. Also, there are 100 senators, and so legislation passing/not passing can never be blamed on just one. Leiberman took the public relations hit, but there were 40 other nay votes to blame also.