Note: Video included.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52418
“Rockefeller Uses Health-Insurance Profits Statistic Calculated by ACORN-Backed Group to Make Case for Government-Run Health Care”
Thursday, August 13, 2009
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter
(CNSNews.com) -
SNIPPET: “Sen. Rockefeller’s press secretary Rebecca Bale confirmed to CNSNews.com that HCAN was the source for Sen Rockefeller’s statement that insurance company profits had increased by more than 400% since 2001.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used a similar statistic recently, but his office did not respond to inquiries from CNSNews.com asking what Reid’s source was.
“There is no business in America that makes more money than the insurance industry—over the last 10 years their profits have been increased by 450 percent,” Reid said during a July 30 press conference on health care reform. “So, I’m not really in very much of a mood to worry about the insurance industry.”
The American Association of Health Plans—a group that represents health insurance companies disagrees with HCAN’s findings. According to a study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers for AAHP, health plans had an average profit margin of 3% in 2007. American Hospital Association data suggests that profit margin increases have not exceeded 3.5% annually since 1990.
Rockefeller also told CNSNews.com that since the “public option” will not be required to seek a profit, it will force private health insurance companies to “re-think” how much they charge.”
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2315786/posts
More Health Care Nonsense
RealClearPolitics ^ | August 14, 2009 | Charles Krauthammer
Posted on August 14, 2009 1:32:17 AM PDT by kingattax
WASHINGTON — In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee’s reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy — yet the Democrats’ plans would make the problem worse.
Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama’s idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House’s income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.
Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also “will save money.”
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: “It saves lives. It also saves money.”
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...