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In reply to the discussion: BREAKING: Supreme Court Upholds Individual Mandate As A Tax [View all]On the Road
(20,783 posts)but will be prevented from making the types of common in the last decade. They are not (as you originally indicated) guaranteed 20% profit margins.
Not that insurance providers haven't made excessive profits in some cases. In the mid 00s, my doctor dropped Optimum Choice because they routinely denied payment for treatment that was justified in his opinion while only spending 65% of premiums on care. That will no longer be possible.
The 2-3% Medicare overhead is not a comparable percentage, since it is skewed by the age of the people covered:
People of Medicare age have medical expenses at least three times the median age. An administrative cost of 2.5% for a 70-year-old would equate to 7.5% for a 40-year-old. By comparison, the justifiably criticized Optimum Choice had 8% administrative costs in this case (MD 2008):
http://uhcrights.com/mdi/documents/MDI_state_spec_requirements.pdf
If Medicare for all is ever instituted (as I hope it will be), that 2-3% is going to rise to be more in line with the rest of the industry.
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As far as the reason for Roberts's vote, it is immaterial. But do you really think that Scalia, Thomas, and Alito resisted corporate pressure while Roberts succumbed to it?