Record profits are being posted by health insurance companies, while at the same time they are complaining mightily and trying to weaken the new regulations through their lobbyists. These unprecedented profits fly in the face of their claims that the new regulations will harm the industry!
Despite a growing number of Americans forgoing the purchase of health insurance, these folks are still raking in impressive profits. The largest insurer, Wellpoint reports a 4 percent INCREASE for the 2nd quarter and generated earnings of $1.6 billion from the beginning of the year, which is a 26 percent increase over the same period in 2009. And Aetna reports that its “second-quarter profits rose 42 percent, with a net income of $492 million, compared with $346.6 million for the same quarter last year.”
Whew.
A recently released report, by Health Care for American Now, finds that the 10 largest health insurance companies paid their CEOs a “collected pay of $228.1 million, up from $85.5 million in 2008.” Health insurance CEOs, as a group, got a raise of 167 percent, and the rest of us got about a 2 percent increase in average wages. What’s wrong with this picture? “
Crying “poor” just does not appear to be justified. Would it be possible for them to trim their heady bottom-lines a bit for the good of the nation? We ask our military to sacrifice; we ask our middle class to suck-it-up and lower their living standards; we ask our labor unions to accept lowered benefits than their legally negotiated contracts give them. But, somehow — the health insurance companies just can’t help share in the national responsibilities that the rest of us are meeting!?!
And the real burn is that insurance companies earned more, in part, because they have spent less money on actually providing for their customers medical care! Democrats are making the point that their record profits should prevent them from raising their premiums next year. Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA), who is Chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee, released a statement, “Wellpoint and Aetna are on track for great years with multi-billion dollar profits. Now it’s time for them to return those windfalls to their enrollees in the form of reduced premiums. With business booming, there is no excuse for any premium hikes or benefit cuts next year by Wellpoint or Aetna in their private sector or Medicare Advantage plans.”
After more than 30 years of conservatives elevating Big-Business to a lofty position above the rest of Americans, these guys just don’t seem to get it that they don’t deserve their big bonuses and salaries while the rest of the nation suffers. We’re either all in it together as Americans … or we’re not. And if the answer is “we’re not” then I suspect our best days are behind us as a country. We just can’t continue to sustain this growing income divide without destroying our economy and our nation’s future.
And now, Republican legislators are going to try to remove any constraints on the health insurance companies’ unpatriotic and unseemly quest for their own profits — and that has to be fought with all our might.
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