- The chairman of Aetna, the third largest health insurance company in the United States, made $68.7 million during 2010.
- The top executives at the five largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States combined to receive nearly $200 million in total compensation in 2009.
- One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
- Over the last decade, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen from about 38 million to about 52 million
- According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
- According to a report by Health Care for America Now, America’s five biggest for-profit health insurance companies ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.
- According to the Los Angeles Times, Blue Shield of California plans to raise rates an average of 30% to 35%, and some individual policy holders could see their health insurance premiums rise by a 59 percent this year alone.
- According to an article on the Mother Jones website, health insurance premiums for small employers in the U.S. increased 180% between 1999 and 2009.
- Between 2000 and 2006, wages in the United States increased by 3.8%, but health care premiums increased by 87%
- There were more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies that made over a billion dollars in profits in 2008.
- It is not uncommon for insurance companies to get hospitals to knock their bills down by up to 95 percent, but if you are uninsured or you don’t know how the system works then you are out of luck.
- According to one recent report, Americans spend approximately twice as much as residents of other developed countries on health care.
Check these numbers out:
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