Did you deliberately miss the point or is this merely a diversionary tactic? In case it was the former, I’ll point out again that Limbaugh at his worst is no worse than Nancy Pelosi, MoveOn.org and many other Democratic movers and shakers who are every bit as dishonest and inflammatory themselves and yet whose dishonesty causes crickets to chirp around here.
Again, Limbaugh is merely the flip side of the partisan coin and no worse than many people and organizations who are admired and cheered around here.
And on preview I see that RNATB has already addressed the missed point issue.
RNATB, Van Hollen is a Democratic Representative from Maryland and chairman of the Democratic National Campaign Committee, the fifth highest ranking position in the Democratic leadership. In the linked article he is shown to have claimed that insurance company profits have skyrocketed, a statement which the insurance company profit statistics I posted clearly show to be false.
I see. So the argument is that Limbaugh doesn’t really lie, but when he doesn’t, he’s only lying as much as the other guys, who really are lying, but he isn’t lying when he doesn’t lie pretty much as much as the liberals. Who can be proven to by liars by simply referencing the unblemished candor of Fox News.
You fail to persuade, Starkers, but you never fail to entertain.
Not nearly so much as your not-so-clever twisting of my words and implication that Fox News’ statistics are wrong without showing where (which you would undoubtedly do with glee if only you could).
My point – yet again – is that Limbaugh is no more partisan and no more dishonest than any number of the Democratic leadership and political organizations, and yet somehow he’s the one that is constantly reviled for his dishonesty around here. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and all that, and if you’re going to dismiss Limbaugh and claim that he is the scum of the Earth because of the lies he tells, you’re gonna need more cleverness than you’ve shown so far to explain why your own aren’t scum and just as deserving of dismissiveness as well.
What exactly are the “lies” told by Pelosi, Van Hollen and MoveOn.org? And what are the *amounts *of profits, not the percentages? That is not mentioned, but I’d bet the farm that it’s in the billions of dollars. For example, “UnitedHealth Group had reported its earnings for the second quarter of 2009, which beat analysts’ expectations with profit of $859 million. Still, other quarters have been more profitable for the insurer, such as the first quarter of 2008, when profit rang in at $994 million.” Cite. That’s ONE company and its nearly $1 billion in *profit *for just a couple of example QUARTERS.
And just perhaps there is not a fair comparison between the profits of a health insurance company and that of Coors Beer. Perhaps there are different definitions of “obscene” and “immoral” profits for these different companies, as, for example, no one ever died from not being able to afford Tupperware. The insurance companies get no sympathy from me, particularly considering what they pay their CEOs* and the fact that they’re spending some $1.4 million PER DAY on lobbying efforts.
No, the words of the Democrats cited above are NOT similar to the hate-laced dreck spewed by RL day in and day out. Not even close.
for 2008 (most were MUCH higher in 2007):
Aetna, Ronald A. Williams: $24,300,112
Cigna, H. Edward Hanway: $12,236,740
Coventry, Dale Wolf: $9,047,469
Health Net, Jay Gellert: $4,425,355
Humana, Michael McCallister: $4,764,309
U. Health Group, Stephen J. Hemsley: $3,241,042
Wellpoint, Angela Braly: $9,844,212
That insurance company profits are “immoral,” “obscene”; that their profits have “skyrocketed”; and that insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe," respectively.
Percentages are always what a company looks at when examining its health and profitability. (And what the government always looks at in assessing taxes.) Percentages are everything. It makes no sense otherwise. For example, would you think it’s a good idea to invest $10,000,000 in a business that’s going to pay you only $12,000 a year? Of course not. Not only are here are tons of other ways to invest $10,000,000 and earn much more than that, but you’d be better off to just sink the $10 mil into savings bonds. You’d make more money and save yourself the hassle of operating a business.
Furthermore, reducing the amount of profit that companies earning only a 2% to 4% profit doesn’t have any significant impact on what their customers pay. I’m gonna pull some figures out of the air here to illustrate the point. These figures should not be construed to indicate that I am saying they are or are not an accurate description of actual oil company economics. Now, let’s say that the price of oil has risen drastically and that gas is selling for $5.00 a gallon and everyone is up in arms over the price of gasoline. Then let’s say that Democrats in congress decide to seize 100% of oil company profits, allowing them only to operate and nothing else. This in an attempt to make gasoline cheaper for everyone at the pump. Yay, Democrats! Only problem is, the oil companies have been operating on a profit margin of only ten percent of revenue, which comes to 50 cents a gallon. So this means that completely eliminating all oil company profits is only going to reduce the price the customer pays at the pump to $4.50. Not much help is it? Sure, oil company profits in the billions of dollars sounds like a lot, but they’re only making that much money because of the number of gallons they sell. The profit they get to keep (and pay taxes on, btw) is very small in terms of what the consumer pays for the end product.
It’s the same way with insurance companies. Not only is two billion dollars of profit a year not much if you’re taking in a hundred billion a year in revenue and spending 98 billion on your customers, but taking it away completely would reduce the cost to their customers by only a very slight amount. 3% to be exact. This means that someone paying $500 a month for health insurance from UnitedHealth Group would see their premiums reduced to $485 a month. Big deal, huh?
So as you can see, in real terms that one billion over two quarters that you are so incensed about is virtually meaningless.
Again, what they pay their CEOs and spend on lobbying is quite insignificant. You are falling for the same type of rabble-rousing and misdirection by the likes of Pelosi, et. al, that Rush Limbaugh gets criticized for. Add all those CEO salaries together and you get roughly $679 million dollars, which is roughly enough to knock that $500 a month premium I mentioned down by another $10.
So, let’s hear the conservatives who rant about “personal responsibility” actually show some sense of personal responsibility and demand that Rush lose his gig.
While we’re pulling numbers out of the air, allow me to do the same. Similar disclaimers apply.
Suppose I have a health insurance company. During one year, I sell $1,000,000 worth of insurance, and my total expenses are $900,000. During the very next year, I sell $10,000,000 and my expenses are $9,000,000.
Profit expressed as a percentage of gross: 10% (unchanged)
Profit expressed in dollars: $100,000 to $1,000,000 (an increase of 900%)
You’re making the same mistake legalsnugs did. Percentage is what matters when talking about price-gouging, and price-gouging is how the left is trying to portray the issue. It only stands to reason that if a company sells more product it will earn more dollars.
And let’s call a spade a fucking shovel here and acknowledge that when Pelosi and her ilk talk about “obscene,” “immoral” and “skyrocketing” profits, they’re not talking about insurance companies selling more policies. They are trying to imply price-gouging in an area where people feel they have no choice but to pay up.
Again, they are engaging in precisely the kind of dishonest misdirection and verbal tomfoolery which is designed to fool the ignorant that Limbaugh gets lambasted for around here on a daily basis.
The percentage many do take into account is the one that goes from an almost complete absence of private health insurers in other developed nations to the obscene amount that we have here in America. The current system is eating money that we could use for more jobs and being more flexible in our progress as a nation.
So, roughly 10% going for a system that came from an accident of history.
Calculating all the benefits, jobs, industrial development, R&D that we and private companies could have had nowadays if we were not paying that 10% extra…
Yes, I would call that 10% difference immoral.
Too bad that only History will be able to condemn the irresponsible politicians of the Roosevelt era that opposed the UH proposed back then.
The judgment of the politicians of today is pending depending on what reform we get.
Why is the number “obscene”? What makes it obscene? Is the number of automobile insurance companies obscene? Is the number of life insurance companies and home owner’s insurance obscene. I’d say that it’s this county’s success and prosperity that have made the proliferation of health care insurance companies possible, and that that is a good thing, not a bad one. Health insurance companies are simply a way of making sure that things you can’t or don’t want to have to pay for are paid by someone else, with the risk being covered by others who are willing to pay for the same protection. It’s been a sound practice, just like other types of insurance are. You act like the existence and proliferation of health insurance companies is some sort of evil machination designed to drain the country of lifeblood, when in reality it’s nothing more than any other type of insurance, and one that for the most part has been a good thing for those who have it.
In other words, taxes.
Why is it that some people seem to feel that any private money which they feel is being wastefully or wrongfully spent should rightfully have been going to the government in the first place?
Sorry. I don’t think it’s your call to make. The money people spend on clothing they don’t need could do the same thing. So could the money they spend on booze or entertainment.
I don’t mean this in an insulting way, but it simply isn’t for you to make moral judgements about how other people spend their money vis-a-vis what you think it should be spent on.
I’d say it too bad that only history will be able to condemn the irresponsible politicians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries who are spending like drunken sailors and putting the onus on following generations to pay the tab. Where’s your concern about that? Politicians irresponsibly spending beyond our means has created a debt that dwarfs health care expenditure. Where’s your ire and condemnation as obscene and immoral when it comes to that?
Because it does not **exist **in other developed nations.
I think you did not read that properly, the 10 percent difference is arrived by including the taxes the other nations do pay already.
Again, the government’s expense is already taken into account.
That is ok, we already know that you do not care that a good chunk of your money is being wasted.
And the clothing maker and liquor store owner also have families to feed. The point that you are so stubbornly trying to avoid is that the current system, besides driving jobs out of America, will get more expensive and that does translate to less money available for American companies to compete with other nations.
It is more than a moral judgment. It is an economical one.
What makes you think I would not be upset about that? Besides that being an stupid attempt at changing subject, it is clear that the politicians of the past totally missed the proper thing to do. We would not be having this conversation and we could be complaining about aunt Margaret having to wait a little for her treatment, rather than complaining that she was completely denied or having to sold her house to survive.
