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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (9756)	2/18/2012 10:13:38 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 85487

We need single payer universal health care No we don't. We not only don't need it, we wouldn't even benefit from it. Health care does not need to be private with a 40% overhead. Medicare is 4%. 1 - I assume you mean health insurance not health care. 2- You figure for private insurance is a huge overestimate. 3 - Your figure for Medicare ignores many government costs of Medicare that are not directly part of the Medicare program. Society has the right to struncture itself that way People have rights, government has powers, society is a nebulous concept at least in this context. and it is best for the people. No it isn't. Like an 80 year old women would be able to get affordable healthcare. Someone else paying for something doesn't make it more affordable, it just means the tab is being picked up by someone else, its still just as effective (unless the tab being picked up by the government means there is going to be rationing of care). When someone is hurt, a decent society will be there for them. Our society is, at least about as much as other societies are.

To: koan who wrote (9756)	2/19/2012 11:08:47 AM
From: sm1th	2 Recommendations Respond to of 85487

Health care does not need to be private with a 40% overhead Where do you get your information? No insurer would survive with 40% overhead. Here are some facts, publicly traded Wellpoint, one of the 2 largest private for profit health insurers. Benefit expense 44,926.9 47,119.8 (2,192.9 ) (5 ) Selling, general and administrative expense: Selling expense 1,610.3 1,685.5 (75.2 ) (4 ) General and administrative expense 7,229.1 7,424.9 (195.8 ) (3 ) Total selling, general and administrative expense 8,839.4 9,110.4 (271.0 ) (3 ) Cost of drugs — 419.0 (419.0 ) (100 ) Interest expense 418.9 447.4 (28.5 ) (6 ) Amortization of other intangible assets 241.7 266.0 (24.3 ) (9 ) Impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets 21.1 262.5 (241.4 ) (92 ) Total expenses 54,448.0 57,625.1 (3,177.1 ) (6 ) Income before income tax expense 4,353.8 7,403.0 (3,049.2 ) (41 ) Income tax expense 1,466.7 2,657.1 (1,190.4 ) (45 ) Net income $ 2,887.1 $ 4,745.9 $ (1,858.8 ) (39 ) Total selling general and administrative expenses are about 15%. I have looked at the financials of other organizations which have slightly lower admin costs. Medicaid overhead may seem low to the govt, but it pushes a lot of extra admin costs onto the providers.