Quote:
Originally Posted by aceventura3
In the original post, first bullet point indicated a 56% profit increase from 2008 to 2009. Looking at the income statement of one of the companies gives some insight that refutes the basic premise of the entire argument being presented. Further, it appears there was an accounting rule change in 2008 that may have made the year to year comparison totally worthless. In one regard I was not responding to posts that followed the original post or the belief that health insurance companies are evil, greedy, and exploit innocent consumers, I simply looked at some of the numbers without drawing any morality conclusion. The morality conclusion I did draw was regarding the underlying dishonesty in the manner in which the data was presented.
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Well, yes. But as I said, profit margins are far from being adequate representations in a sector where "costs" can be messed around with. Return on equity would be a much better indicator of actual profitability, but that would make these companies look even worse, so I'm guessing they are fine with whatever fumbling of the numbers people do as long as they are using the profit margin as an indicator.