Originally Posted by Aladdin Sane

The 56% more figure is meaningless by itself. This article is meant to inflame passions. It adds nothing to the debate about health care.

Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent. By this measure, the most profitable industry over the past year has been beverages, with a 25.9 percent profit margin.