Healthcare Costs

Coyote has a good chart today for those who want to blame healthcare costs on insurance companies.

Because everyone knows that most of the costs of healthcare reform can be paid for by ripping the excess profits out of the health insurance business like a liver from a fish. Just to remind everyone, these are net profit margins reported by Google Finance for 3Q2008 of the largest health care providers and insurers:

Cigna: 3.50%
United Health Group: 4.56%
Aetna: 3.64%
WellCare: 4.08%
Amerigroup: 3.51%
Humana 2.56%
WellPoint: 5.49%

Those margins are seriously pitiful. In my opinion if we have the best healthcare in the world then we should expect it to cost a lot. Its not convenient for most of us and I am not saying that their isn't waste in the system. However, the costs of letting the government run the program are worse than I want to think about and it would come with crappy service.
If you really want cheaper medical care we should outlaw all very high deductible health insurance. Because after all when was the last time you called around for quotes on a doctor visit.