Quote:
Originally Posted by aceventura3
I did some looking at Well Point, note the last paragraph quoting the CEO regarding enrollment:
(WLP) WellPoint Beats Consensus Earnings Estimates | Stock Blog Hub
The point of this is to illustrate there is a lot of stuff going on within this company having an effect on financial results. Isn't kinda foolish or dishonest to come to superficial or political conclusions without actually digging into the numbers?
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Isn't it kinda foolish or dishonest to ignore the actual argument I am making?
I didn't say that they don't actually have costs, and that those costs don't actually fluctuate.
I said that the "margin of profit" is a meaningless number when it comes to companies like health insurance companies, because they can play around with those numbers using stuff like "Expected payouts." Therefore, the return on equity numbers are a better indicator of actual profitability, as it gives you the profit one makes on how much they invested. Well Point, for example, lists its profit margin as 4.1%, but its return on equity was 10.2%. To compare, Anheuser Busch had a profit margin of 13%, and a return on equity of 13%.
If you look at the return on equity for health insurance companies, the return people are getting on their investment is actually among the top anywhere.