16 years ago, before most of the insurance companies were publicly traded, they spent 95% of premium dollars on health care. That level is comparable to Medicare, which spends 97% of premium dollars on care. But once these companies went public and started trading on Wall Street, the relentless drive for profit drove down that percentage to where it sits today, at 81%.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com

That’s 14 points of difference. The number 14 — when we’re talking 100’s of millions of dollars of service — is big.

No wonder.