2014
Remember during the health care reform debate all you heard about was outrageous health insurance company profits, high salaries and the like? Those greedy villains were the cause of high premiums, right? Wrong‼️It was just another scapegoat tactic that many Americans swallowed lock, stock and barrel.
If you watch TV at all, what is the one consistent product you hear most about day and night? If you answered anything other than prescription drugs, you don’t really watch TV. I bet you know more about treating arthritis, high cholesterol, Crohn’s disease, a fib, psoriasis and shingles than your doctor does. If you think about it, where is the clinical logic for advertising drugs? There isn’t any, the logic is to get you to take more drugs, expensive brand drugs. This advertising works, ask your doctor the next time you visit.
By the way, pay close attention to the disclaimers at the end of the commercial, the side effect risks should make you think twice before running to your doctor for a refill. 😰
Now, if you watch daytime TV like many seasoned citizens, you will be inundated with advertising for braces, stair climbers, scooters, unique laser treatments and cancer treatment centers all claiming to be the best, most innovative resources with outstanding results. And then there is my favorite, the legal leeches trying to get you to file a malpractice lawsuit.
All of the above add to health care costs and inefficiency. Clinical success, and value added treatment speak for themselves, they don’t need advertising.
And this promoting of health care utilization adds to your health insurance premiums far more than anything an insurance company may do. And oh yes, when compared on an apples to apples basis, the administrative expenses of insurance companies are quite similar to Medicare.
Source: medmutual.com
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
I agree with many things you write about. However, when the law changed that 80% of insurance premiums go to medical care we got a hefty refund for the first year with no price increase for the following year (previous years we were getting over $1000 a year increases). The following year we got a smaller refund with a 5% increase for the following year. So I do think insurance companies were making a huge profit.
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There is a wide variance in pricing and cost among health plans with individual contracts the most expensive to maintain. The rebate did not represent profit simply because the insurer was forced to pay it, the money came from other parts of the business. Health insurers have and always have had one of the lowest profit margins of any business.
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