rough copy of my next ltte Re: National Health Plan ...please critique

[w8liftinglady]

$98,400,218,746.00.This is the sum profits for the top 25 health insurers in the U.S. as of 2007.Despite this,the United States ranks 19th in the world for deaths by preventable diseases.The United States spends roughly $7,126 per capita in heath costs,and yet has one of the poorest performance in the organized world.This can be attributed to several things.Private insurers waste up to one -third of their costs on things that have nothing to do with health care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay.Doctors and hospitals must maintain huge staffs to deal with this bureaucracy.Combined,this needless administration consumes 1/3 of America's health care dollars.Add to that the fact that 47 million Americans are uninsured(with that number sure to grow),and you have a crisis.
H.R. 676 is a bill that is before the House that offers a viable solution to this crisis.Some of the benefits of H.R. 676 are:
-Every resident of the US will be covered from birth to death.
-No more pre-existing conditions to be excluded from coverage.
-No more expensive deductibles or co-pays.
-All prescription medications will be covered.
-All dental and eye care will be included.
-Mental health and substance abuse care will be fully covered.
-Long term and nursing home services will be included.
-You will always choose your own doctors and hospitals.
-Costs of coverage will be assessed on a sliding scale basis.
-Tremendously simplified system of medical administration
-Total portability – your coverage not tied to any job or location.
-Existing Medicare benefits for those over 65 will remain the same or be vastly improved in many cases.
-No corporate bureaucrat will ever come between you and your Doctor to deny your care
This bill is endorsed by Physicians for a National Health Plan,an ever growing group of doctors who have seen first hand the effects of our poor health system on their patients.
Sadly,only 2 Texas Congressmen have co-sponsored this.If you believe this should be the future of our health care,please write or call Congressman Joe Barton and ask that he support this legislation.

[NewJeffCT]

1. Where is your $98 billion number from?

I added up the profits of the top 13 and came up to about $13 billion in total. No way the next 12 made $85 billion in profits

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/industries/223/index.html


The big profits are in the pharmaceutical companies, where the top 13 made just over $40 billion in total profits.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/industries/21/index.html

[w8liftinglady]

2. maybe i'm wrong...here

http://www.thestreet.com/s/health-insurers-battle-rising-costs/newsanalysis/ratings/10398943.html?

[NewJeffCT]

3. the chart on the bottom is asset size

which means, how much money/assets they have. That is the total amount of money they have taken in from premiums, plus any investment profits. However, a large piece of that goes to pay claims and cover expenses.

It's kind of confusing when you also consider that many health insurers also sell life insurance, or at least group life insurance, plus other types of insurance as well. Having worked at Aetna before, I know that a large part of their profit came from Group Life insurance (the kind you can buy from your employer that is offered to most employees of large corporations)and other insurance, and not from the health insurance business. Granted, I haven't worked there since 2001, so it's changed since that time.

[w8liftinglady]

4. thanks-I feel like a moron..I've bookmarked the site

13 billion dollars.This is the sum profits for the top 13 health insurers in the U.S. in 2007.Despite this,the United States ranks 19th in the world for deaths by preventable diseases.The United States spends roughly 7,126 per capita in heath costs,and yet has one of the poorest performance in the organized world.This can be attributed to several things.Private insurers waste up to one -third of their costs on things that have nothing to do with health care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay.Doctors and hospitals must maintain huge staffs to deal with this bureaucracy.Combined,this needless administration consumes 1/3 of America's health care dollars.Add to that the fact that 47 million Americans are uninsured(with that number sure to grow),and you have a crisis.
H.R. 676 is a bill that is before the House that offers a viable solution to this crisis.Some of the benefits of H.R. 676 are:
-Every resident of the US will be covered from birth to death.
-No more pre-existing conditions to be excluded from coverage.
-No more expensive deductibles or co-pays.
-All prescription medications will be covered.
-All dental and eye care will be included.
-Mental health and substance abuse care will be fully covered.(1)
-Long term and nursing home services will be included.
-You will always choose your own doctors and hospitals.
-Costs of coverage will be assessed on a sliding scale basis.
-Tremendously simplified system of medical administration
-Total portability – your coverage not tied to any job or location.
-Existing Medicare benefits for those over 65 will remain the same or be vastly improved in many cases.
-No corporate bureaucrat will ever come between you and your Doctor to deny your care
This bill is endorsed by Physicians for a National Health Plan,an evergrowing group of doctors who have seen first hand the effects of our poor health system on their patients.
Sadly,only 3 Texas Congressmen have co-sponsored this.If you believe this should be the future of our health care,please write or call Congressman Joe Barton and ask that he support this legislation.

[NewJeffCT]

5. Otherwise, looks good

You might want to change "organized" world to "developed" world would be my other suggestion.