Refi Home Mortgage to drop 1%

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Third Eye

I mean, I can say with 100% certainty that they do. There’s also no health insurer that makes anywhere near that profit. UHC is the largest health insurer in the world and they profited slightly over a quarter of that. The margins are way smaller than you think they are. At the insurer that I price for, we target 1.5% margin on new business. Revenue is huge, but revenue is not profit.

A cool $10 billion/year in profit for a company that takes my money every two weeks for no other purpose than being able to use that money to pay for future services that I may never use (and of course, more money than that with the outrageous cost of health care)... yet, I could put into the system for 60 years and never see a dime of my money back in either services or cash.... so, until I use the insurance and get scrutinized tooth and nail to squeeze the money I've put into it back out, I'm helping out those ever so slim margins.

Yeah, no scam there...

[Third Eye]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

A cool $10 billion/year in profit for a company that takes my money every two weeks for no other purpose than being able to use that money to pay for future services that I may never use (and of course, more money than that with the outrageous cost of health care)... yet, I could put into the system for 60 years and never see a dime of my money back in either services or cash.... so, until I use the insurance and get scrutinized tooth and nail to squeeze the money I've put into it back out, I'm helping out those ever so slim margins.

Yeah, no scam there...

I’m certainly not going to argue about the outrageous costs of health care, but that’s not the discussion. Still not seeing how it’s a scam. Do you think the fire department is a scam? Chances are you’ll never need them but you pay for them every year too.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Third Eye

I’m certainly not going to argue about the outrageous costs of health care, but that’s not the discussion. Still not seeing how it’s a scam. Do you think the fire department is a scam? Chances are you’ll never need them but you pay for them every year too.

Paying taxes is putting the money directly into the salaries, equipment, etc; for that service, which is of course very much needed. And I assume a fire department doesn't make $10 billion per year (what the government actually does with your money and how much they make from it is a whole other discussion that yeah, most people take exception to).

The analogy would only work if I was paying into the salaries of doctors and the costs to run hospitals... many of which are not-for-profit, which makes insurance companies that much more laughable.

Take that $14 billion profit last year... then take $10 billion of that and divide it among everyone who didn't use their insurance for that year. Let's say 50% of their 50 million customers (I'm hoping to low-ball that?).... that would be $400 per person for the year. Yeah, not gobs of money considering how much you pay into it, going back to the thin margins, but at lease something back, while they still profit four billion dollars.

[Third Eye]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Paying taxes is putting the money directly into the salaries, equipment, etc; for that service, which is of course very much needed. And I assume a fire department doesn't make $10 billion per year (what the government actually does with your money and how much they make from it is a whole other discussion that yeah, most people take exception to).

The analogy would only work if I was paying into the salaries of doctors and the costs to run hospitals... many of which are not-for-profit, which makes insurance companies that much more laughable.

Take that $14 billion profit last year... then take $10 billion of that and divide it among everyone who didn't use their insurance for that year. Let's say 50% of their 50 million customers (I'm hoping to low-ball that?).... that would be $400 per person for the year. Yeah, not gobs of money considering how much you pay into it, going back to the thin margins, but at lease something back, while they still profit four billion dollars.

I mean, the biggest problem with that is that most people have insurance through their employer right? I mean, I can’t speak for everybody, but my portion of the costs is a pretty small fraction of the total cost of insurance. Of that $400, I’m seeing less than $70.

Edit - actually it would be closer to $100. I used last year’s W-2 and I forgot that I qualified for a special program.

[Third Eye]

Regardless, we are very much hijacking this thread about refinancing to talk about health insurance. So I’ll let it die and just say that we can agree to disagree. I obviously have a bias since I’m intimately involved in one side of the argument, but I also think I have a better than average understanding of the mechanics.