The intent was to deny healthcare to enough people to make higher profits. The intent of privatized healthcare is not to save lives but expense them. There is no moral or ethical reason to tell an ER surgeon you will make more money the more surgeries you deny, so why would it make any more sense for the insurance companies to be deciding what procedures should or should not be funded. The only times a procedure should be denied is if there is a limited supply of something, say heart transplants. Even then, it should never be up to the insurance companies, it should be up to the doctors determining the best odds and usage of the shortage to save as many lives as possible.
For profit industries are required to put out projections for growth. Those projections are what intices investors to buy their stock raising demand/value. If you do not hit those growths the company will be seen as failing and investments will slow. There are a couple ways insurance companies can increase revenue, one is raising premiums which will often price users out of purchasing coverage and therefore they would potentially lose revenue to other companies or simply by more of the population not having insurance. The other way is to insure people at the same rate, but limit their plans coverages and slowly take out bits and pieces upping copays here, lower maximum coverages, but standardly they want to avoid raising the deductible as it will turn away people from signing up. Kind of like shrinkflation if you will, but for insurance. Then they “had” to get more competitive, and they found that they can just deny coverage on situations and users often can’t afford to fight these denials, so they make more money off denying them then they do fighting court cases against the few that can, also they can just give in settle and pay for those who do try to take them to court. Paperwork paperwork paperwork, 6 months later it didn’t get approved still. Since they are a for profit company, they are held accountable by their shareholders. Which means they can actually be sued by their own shareholders if they don’t show they are doing everything they can to make the bottom line go up. Does Charlie need the $65,000 treatment vs the $14,000 treatment, shareholders say $14,000. He has higher odds of survival on the $65,000 treatment, and will have a better quality of life, no thank you. Line needs to go up. So Charlie dies on the table because that $41,000 was needed to be thrown into our $16 billion profit for the year. Or you know, maybe Charlie died because he had to wait those 6 months for approval for the treatment and by that time his issues had progressed to a point that made his chances much lower.
For profit healthcare is not for the health of the people.
The intent was to deny healthcare to enough people to make higher profits. The intent of privatized healthcare is not to save lives but expense them. There is no moral or ethical reason to tell an ER surgeon you will make more money the more surgeries you deny, so why would it make any more sense for the insurance companies to be deciding what procedures should or should not be funded. The only times a procedure should be denied is if there is a limited supply of something, say heart transplants. Even then, it should never be up to the insurance companies, it should be up to the doctors determining the best odds and usage of the shortage to save as many lives as possible.
Explain how you think that works.
For profit industries are required to put out projections for growth. Those projections are what intices investors to buy their stock raising demand/value. If you do not hit those growths the company will be seen as failing and investments will slow. There are a couple ways insurance companies can increase revenue, one is raising premiums which will often price users out of purchasing coverage and therefore they would potentially lose revenue to other companies or simply by more of the population not having insurance. The other way is to insure people at the same rate, but limit their plans coverages and slowly take out bits and pieces upping copays here, lower maximum coverages, but standardly they want to avoid raising the deductible as it will turn away people from signing up. Kind of like shrinkflation if you will, but for insurance. Then they “had” to get more competitive, and they found that they can just deny coverage on situations and users often can’t afford to fight these denials, so they make more money off denying them then they do fighting court cases against the few that can, also they can just give in settle and pay for those who do try to take them to court. Paperwork paperwork paperwork, 6 months later it didn’t get approved still. Since they are a for profit company, they are held accountable by their shareholders. Which means they can actually be sued by their own shareholders if they don’t show they are doing everything they can to make the bottom line go up. Does Charlie need the $65,000 treatment vs the $14,000 treatment, shareholders say $14,000. He has higher odds of survival on the $65,000 treatment, and will have a better quality of life, no thank you. Line needs to go up. So Charlie dies on the table because that $41,000 was needed to be thrown into our $16 billion profit for the year. Or you know, maybe Charlie died because he had to wait those 6 months for approval for the treatment and by that time his issues had progressed to a point that made his chances much lower.
For profit healthcare is not for the health of the people.
That’s an interesting little fantasy that’s brings us nicely back to the question you dodged, since you’re clinging again to this $16B number:
And how much did they take in from premiums in 2024? How much of what they took in did they pay out to claimants?