Show of Hands

It's not about having free healthcare. 1.) this question was in general about all insurance. 2.) it wouldn't be free, you'd still have to pay into it, payouts just wouldn't be based on how the insurance company can make the most money.

They don't make less than 5%. I don't even know where you got that statistic.

Obamacare limits them to 5% which they usually didn't make before. This article says their profits are expected to be 3-5% this year. www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-profits-20160427-snap-htmlstory.html

The reason most of them are dropping out of the exchanges are because they are struggling to make a profit at all. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-30/obamacare-premiums-jump-but-insurers-still-struggle-for-profit

You're right, I'm sorry. There are healthcare companies that have a profit margin of less than 5%. Most of the bigger companies are making between 7 and 8% and will the amount of revenue, that makes a HUGE difference.

5% isn't that little if you're making $10 billion on $200 billion. That's still $10 billion dollars, you could pay every employee a hugely comfortable wage and still have a few billion left over for payouts.
Obamacare doesn't limit it, UnitedHealthCare made had a 7% profit margin in 2015. Up from previous years actually.

They all claim they aren't making profit but it's bs. If you look at their profits they aren't losing any money because they're taking in much larger revenues. They're dropping out only to protect the shareholders.

Not true. Shareholders want them making money. They would not be dropping out if they were making money.

No, shareholders do not like high risks. The insurers pulling out haven't lost any money in the last few years, they're making more in profit. But with Obamacare they insure more at risk people. Shareholders don't like risks, they'd rather drop out in case it goes bad, even though it hasn't gone bad since implementation.

No. Many have had losses. If they were making money they would stay in.

United Health Group is dropping out after gain in 2015. Same with Aetna whose CEO claims they haven't made a profit but have made ~$7billion in profits. Even crazier is that the for-profit insurers are making almost exactly the same money off Medicare and Medicaid than off privately insured people.

The reason they are dropping out is because Obamacare makes it so more high-risk people can afford insurance. Despite the fact that their stock values have increased (aka they've exceeded analysts expectations for profit), the risk of having to cover sicker and poorer people means that stockholders are more likely to sell. By pulling out and limiting your insurance to only privately insured, you reduce the risk for possible loses and don't scare off stockholders.

No true because Obamacare forces young healthy people to buy insurance which is the lowest risk group. Like I said if it was profitable to stay in they would.

The whole point of Obamacare is to make health insurance available to people who couldn't afford it prior. These people are more at risk. Insurers involved with Obamacare are now required to insure these people that they previously turned away with cost. Therefore there are more at risk people insured.

As I said, they are making profit. You're more than welcome to check the numbers yourself. Reiterating "they wouldn't leave if they were making money" is naïve. It's not about simply making a profit with for-profit insurers. That was my whole point. They would screw over anyone and everyone in order to make the most $ possible for the execs.

The ceos typically make a very small percentage of revenues so even if you took all their pay away it would barely affect premiums. Like I proved before, companies make very low margins and government has made healthcare worse for almost everyone so lay the blame of skyrocketing premiums where it belongs, on government.

Ok have fun living in your echo chamber and ignoring all the evidence put forth of greedy insurers. (PS the CEO of Aetra made $28 million. Pretty sizable salary, wouldn't say that's hardly anything and you have to factor in all the execs, it isn't just the CEO).

*Aetna

Aetna services 46.3 million people so if you paid their CEO nothing it would only knock off $0.60 (60 cents) off their policies. Not much of a savings.

The question is not whether we can require businesses to be NFP, it's whether insurance should be a business.

Our government was established for 6 specific purposes. None of which includes determining what devices MUST be offered on a NFP basis.

If someone thinks it's a good idea there is no reason not to start an NFP insurance provider. There are member owned health benefits organizations in existence.

Government needs to be less involved. Not more

I've worked at a NFP and I know how salaries there work. I know what owners wages are and they still pay employees wages or no one would work for them. Still NFP employees make less than big corporations. Compare Clintons six figure salary to Trumps 9 figure salary.

The clintons made at least 10 figures and that is just what was reported. The Clinton foundation doesn't release its financial records for review.

There are thousands of not-for-profits who are just there to protect people. St. Jude's children hospital for example? They don't make money off patients, they risk losing it by covering customers (patients).

That being said I know you make a valid point, which is why I asked the question to begin with. I'm curious if it would be possible to have not-for-profit insurance companies if they were required to be not-for-profit by law. It's a question of are there enough people willing to work in a humanitarian industry with no guarantee of a big salary.

See my comment below. You are hopelessly naive in the workings of not-for-profit. Large entities like St Jude's make many times over what most for-profits make in "profit".

Also, People would never make charitable contributions to an insurance company, but they engage in large fund raising activities for NFP hospitals.

Of course people wouldn't make donations. It'd still be a pay into system. But already with what people pay and how little they cover you, they make huge salaries.

Ebola I'm fairly certain I have way better insight in how NFPs work considering I worked at one. Maybe don't talk about things you have no idea about.

You not only don't know what your talking about, your mind is a vacuum on this subject.

I don't even know what my mind is a vacuum could mean unless you mean I take in all the information? Yeah, I do.

Again, I know the inner workings of a NFP, you are the one who has no idea what they're talking about as you have proven.

It means it's an empty plain devoid of all knowledge, at least on this subject. You need to talk to some accountants who have experience in the nfp area and they will tell you how they have to hold their noses when discussing that their is no profit in NFP.

HA I worked in Sales. I'm more than aware of how finance works in a NFP. My boss was the CFO.

That only makes your lack of knowledge more appalling.

Lol okay, it's my lack knowledge that disagrees with you. Can't be that I know more about it than you because I have more experience.

Has it ever occurred to you that other folks, myself for instance, have worked with and for NFP organizations and that's why I know more than you on this subject?

It occurred to me but you had plenty of opportunity to defend your knowledge with experience and you never did, you just attacked my knowledge because it didn't fit what you believe. You're more then welcome to defend yourself with experience, but because you haven't, I doubt you have any.

I would say I have more experience than you on this subject, but the issue isn't experience but knowledge. You have shown yourself to be woefully lacking in the knowledge of this subject.

The issue isn't knowledge. It's different knowledge. You say I'm lacking in knowledge but if you have no insight into how NFP work, just second-hand information, then it does become an issue of experience.

I just said that I have more experience than you with NFP.

How would you know you have more experience? I never specified to what extent I worked at the NFP or which NFP I worked with. You're just making a generalization based on the fact that you think my knowledge isn't right. I'm telling you EXACTLY how the NFP I worked with function, financially and generally, and the NFP that were closely associated. It's not my problem if you worked with a corrupted NFP.

You know I have more experience the same way you said you had experience I told you so.

Okay cool. Well, since everything you've said proves you have no idea what you're talking about I'm going to assume the NFP you "worked" with was a very special one rather than assume you're lying.

Also if you don't know how much experience I have, you can't possibly know you have more. It's just bs.

As is your claim of experience, just BS. I have worked with several NFP by the way.

Did you know that the Baptist Hospital system charges for starting cars in their parking lot with dead batteries as unreimbursed indigent care?

That's not true in my experience. Most insurers I've dealt with want to charge you the highest rates possible to be competitive while giving you the least amount of money possible when you need it. The higher ups make a pretty sizable salary screwing over people, most of the money they keep and never pay out.

So, you just made my point! Thank you!

How did I make your point? With a not-for-profit they couldn't keep money for themselves, it would be in their best interest to make fair pay-outs. That's the complete opposite of how insurance works now.

You obviously haven't had much experience with these entities. Keeping the money for themselves is what they do. They put it back into the NFP company in the form of higher salaries for the CEO and upper level employees while disbursing as little as possible to the customers. That's why they're always building. They can't make a "profit" so they spend it buy building and expanding. Most NFP like Baptist Health Centers, St Jude's, St Vincents, etc make so much "profit" they don't know what to do with it especially since they pay no taxes back to the community in which they operate.

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Uh yeah but my whole point is that insurance companies shouldn't do that... bigger and fairer payouts and requesting less $ from customers = not having millions of extra dollars to pay the CEO with.

Again you prove my point.