The Blame Game

Here's the real story: According to the most recent Fortune 500 rankings, health insurers' profits are just 2.2 percent of revenues. Medical facilities have higher profits (2.4 percent). Profits from medical products and equipment (16.3 percent) and from pharmaceuticals (19.3 percent) are seven-to-eight times as high. The combined annual profits of health insurers who cracked the Fortune 1000 list are less than $9 billion, or less than one half of one percent of the $2.5 trillion that America spends each year on health care. So President Obama could eliminate insurers' profits altogether (a possible goal), and more than 99.5 percent of our health costs would remain.