Diminishing Returns on U.S. Citizen’s Health Care Dollar

Fewer and fewer of our health care dollars are being used by the insurance industry to cover medical care. A little over 15 years ago, the insurance industry was spending 95 cents of every dollar given in health insurance premiums toward health care.

Currently, the insurance industry spends only 80 cents of every dollar on health care coverage. We are spending more than ever on health care insurance premiums, but we are getting less and less back for our health care dollar.

Where does that 20 cents on the dollar go, that insurance takes off the top of every health care dollar? On Rachel Maddow, some startling figures were revealed (emphasis mine):

SEC filings show that between the year 2000 and the year 2007, profit of the country‘s 10 largest health insurance companies rose 428 percent. In 2000, they had $2.4 billion in profit. By 2007, it was $12.9 billion…

So, while the 10 biggest health insurance companies were seeing their profits rise over 400 percent between 2000 and 2007, how were they doing at serving that important national need? How were they doing at the whole providing health insurance to the American people thing? Eww! Apparently, while they quadrupled their profits between 2000 and 2007, the number of Americans without health insurance grew by 19 percent.

That seems bad. But not for everyone – also by 2007, the CEOs of the 10 largest health insurance companies were taking home an average compensation of $11.9 million each every year, while the number of Americans without health insurance for whom a burst appendix can mean bankruptcy has gone through the roof.

Rachel Maddow Show: Wendell Potter on the Health Care Industry Putting Soaring Profits Before People | Video Cafe.

Okay, sure, health insurance corporations are raking in outlandish profits. Is that reason alone to reform the health care system?

What is the true cost of not having universal health care, or at least a public option? Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont, has a few figures about the lack of health care in this country.

This is what we should be debating about. Why doesn’t the media mention any of these figures? Could it be that they have health insurance, drug companies, and health technology companies funding their so-called news organizations, or are they just that inept?  I have my own theory that maybe it is both. 

From Senator Bernie Sander (emphasis mine):

Today, 46 million people have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. At a time when 60 million people, including many with insurance, do not have access to a medical home, more than 18,000 Americans die every year from preventable illnesses because they do not get to the doctor when they should. This is six times the number who died at the tragedy of 9/11 – but this occurs every year.

In the midst of this horrendous lack of coverage, the U.S. spends far more per capita on health care than any other nation – and health care costs continue to soar. At $2.4 trillion dollars, and 18 percent of our GDP, the skyrocketing cost of health care in this country is unsustainable both from a personal and macro-economic perspective.

At the individual level, the average American spends about $7,900 per year on health care. Despite that huge outlay, a recent study found that medical problems contributed to 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007. From a business perspective, General Motors spends more on health care per automobile than on steel while small business owners are forced to divert hard-earned profits into health coverage for their employees – rather than new business investments. And, because of rising costs, many businesses are cutting back drastically on their level of health care coverage or are doing away with it entirely.

Further, despite the fact that we spend almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country, our health care outcomes lag behind many other nations. We get poor value for what we spend. According to the World Health Organization the United States ranks 37th in terms of health system performance and we are far behind many other countries in terms of such important indices as infant mortality, life expectancy and preventable deaths.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege.