Losing hope for health care

If anything should be clear to our Serious People in DC, it's that the health care industry has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

The HCAN report shows that after 400 mergers involving health insurers over the last 13 years, concentration has gone up in local markets across the country. The single largest provider of small group coverage (for small businesses, for example) controlled a median market share of 47 percent in 2008. The American Medical Association says 94 percent of insurance markets in the U.S. are highly concentrated.

The result, of course, is soaring prices—with premiums up, on average, more than 87 percent over the past six years. Profits at 10 of the country's largest publicly traded health insurance companies in 2007 rose from $2.4 to 12.9 billion (428 percent) from 2000 to 2007. The CEOs of these companies in 2007 alone collected an average compensation of $11.9 million each. Nice work if you can get it.

As then Senator Barack Obama said in September 2007, "These changes (mergers) were supposed to make the industry more efficient, but instead premiums have skyrocketed."

So why are these people even at the table discussing health care reform? It's the last thing they want. [via Avedon who has a bunch of links that shouldn't be missed on health care and other important stuff.]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]