http://www.healthcare-now.org/blame-the-pharmaceutical-industry/ Organizing for a national, single-payer healthcare system. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:18:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= http://www.healthcare-now.org/blame-the-pharmaceutical-industry/comment-page-1/#comment-7426 John Barker Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:43:52 +0000 http://www.healthcare-now.org/?p=3408#comment-7426 Insurance premiums reflect all costs and profiteering in healthcare whether it be by pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, medical products, fee for service abuses, or insurance company paper work and profits. Insurance companies are easy targets but to say the insurance company profits are "only" 3.4 % and pharmaceutical company profit is 16% is not all that informative. Insurance company profits are "only" 3.4 % of what? Is it 3.4 % of the private portion of spending on health care of our National Health Expenditure? If that supposition is made, in 2007 National Health Expenditures amounted to 2241.2 billions and of that 53.8% was private spending (US Dept. Health and Human Services web site www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/tables.pdf). Fifty three point eight percent of 2241.2 billions is 1205.7 billions and 3.4% of 1205.7 billions is 41 billions. The point is that use of a low percentage with the word "only" is vague even suggests that the subject of concern is trifling when in fact it may not be. Using the above figures, it would "only" be 41 billion that would be totally unnessary to spend on healthcare if the totally unnecessary insurance companies were out of the picture. The often cited 30% cost of insurance company paper work and overhead are over and above their profits so insurance companies are nothing to sneeze at. Although pharmaceutical company profits are obscene, pharmaceutical companies, unlike insurance companies, contribute something to healthcare. It's just that the value of their contribution needs negotiated fair value adjustment. Insurance premiums reflect all costs and profiteering in healthcare whether it be by pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, medical products, fee for service abuses, or insurance company paper work and profits. Insurance companies are easy targets but to say the insurance company profits are “only” 3.4 % and pharmaceutical company profit is 16% is not all that informative. Insurance company profits are “only” 3.4 % of what? Is it 3.4 % of the private portion of spending on health care of our National Health Expenditure? If that supposition is made, in 2007 National Health Expenditures amounted to 2241.2 billions and of that 53.8% was private spending (US Dept. Health and Human Services web site http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/tables.pdf). Fifty three point eight percent of 2241.2 billions is 1205.7 billions and 3.4% of 1205.7 billions is 41 billions. The point is that use of a low percentage with the word “only” is vague even suggests that the subject of concern is trifling when in fact it may not be. Using the above figures, it would “only” be 41 billion that would be totally unnessary to spend on healthcare if the totally unnecessary insurance companies were out of the picture. The often cited 30% cost of insurance company paper work and overhead are over and above their profits so insurance companies are nothing to sneeze at. Although pharmaceutical company profits are obscene, pharmaceutical companies, unlike insurance companies, contribute something to healthcare. It’s just that the value of their contribution needs negotiated fair value adjustment.

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