| > Where do you pull out that profit margin. From the link I provided. > The efficiency is for the shareholders. It's probably worth pointing out that some of the largest American insurance companies are mutuals. They don't have shareholders, or profits. Admittedly this is rarer in health insurance than some other kinds, but State Farm, for example, does a huge health insurance business and sends its excess revenue, if any, back to its policyholder-owners as dividends. Insurance companies that do make profits do much better than 0.7%, but then imagine how much worse that means doctors and hospitals are doing in order to drive the average down that far. And this was originally about hospital bills. Americans with insurance don't typically get bills from the insurance company, just statements of what they aren't going to pay. > The healthcare sector does vertical integration Here you have a point. American antitrust hasn't been good for some time, and tends to be less effective on vertical than horizontal integration. Nevertheless, while I can't immediately find a number on what percentage of American providers are owned by insurance companies, I'm pretty confident it isn't high. |