Comment by sssilver
3 days ago
The profit margin is just the shareholders' cut though.
What about the CEO salary? What about his secretary? The rent they pay for the buildings they occupy? Going down that path, how much of the operational expenses of private insurance meaningfully improve patients' health?
Google says UHC made $370b gross revenue and $12b net revenue.
Not sure what the total exec team costs but if the ceo was paid $10 million that’s 0.03% of revenue and 0.1% of profit.
Not defending them but I do think that people hear $10 million but don’t quite realize how huge the pie is.
I don’t think healthcare should be for-profit, but since we do have that system, what do people expect the ceo of a company (any company) that grosses $370b to earn?
It’s a bit reductive to just say something like “he makes $10 million dollars a year denying patient life-saving treatment”, just like saying the ceo of ratheon makes money from the killing of innocent Palestinians.
In the end though, I increasingly feel like the only moral solution is to have a single payer fully socialized system.
You're looking at the wrong numbers. Annual revenue for all of UnitedHealth Group was $370B. Only part of that was UHC insurance premiums. UHG is a huge conglomerate with multiple lines of business, some of which are unrelated to medical insurance or PBM. If UHG spun off the pure software parts of Optum it would be one of the country's 20 largest tech companies.
https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/investors/financial-report...
Not having to worry about any of those details is the whole point of having a competitive market in the first place. Any company that isn't serious about avoiding overpayment (even to their own CEO) becomes obsolete. And yes, it's a very competitive market with thousands of players and Obamacare setting a ceiling on rates and a floor on coverage.
If the market is competitive, you can trust that you're getting what you pay for. If it's not, well then that's the problem.